


pull the morning out of the night

by heartslogos



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Elven Sentinels, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 86
Words: 129,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8129587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: (if they love each other,who cares?)They pull the morning out of the night.- my sonnet is a light goes on in (e.e. cummings)AU where the elven empire never falls, and the Iron Bull finds himself in service to the favorite of the Wolf.





	1. Chapter 1

“Abelas,” Solas gestures - a thin wisp of mana over the floor in front of him -, “Favorite of Mythal, I was under the impression you were sent to me with Andruil’s offerings of peace.”

“Yes,” Abelas responds, eyebrow raising. Mythal’s chosen are always incredibly dry, but Abelas has been in favor long enough to know that Solas will allow such small displays of character and spine. They add such _color_ to the monotony of life.

“And this is?”

“Andruil’s offering of peace, wolf on high,” Abelas replies.

“Truly?” Solas tilts his head, “Because it looks like Andruil is sending me trouble. It looks like she has sent me the scraps of her failed hunt, and now expects me to clean up her failures - or at least, suffer for them.”

“I am merely here to deliver them to you as a neutral party, exalted one,” Abelas says, “No more, no less.”

Mythal means well, it is a shame Andruil does not.

“What am I to do with this?” Solas says, sending out fingers and hands of mana across the floor. “Reveal them.”

Abelas jerks his head and his fellows remove the blinders from the captured shemlen and Qunari.

Solas has no time for Andruil’s games with the mortal ones, he has enough to deal with on his own.

“She sends me damaged ones,” Solas snorts, ghosting fingers over scars and old broken bones. One is even missing an _eye_. Solas touches the rough and scarred skin - amused at the way the Qunari looks back at him. His horns are unusual - broad and truly ox-like, rather than the curved draconic things Solas is used to seeing.

The eye cannot be salvaged, an old wound. Not Andruil’s doing, then.

Solas cannot sense any pain from the eye - but there are other pains. They will all need to be sent for healing and restoration.

“Damaged,” Solas muses as the one-eyed one continues to bore into him, “But not broken.”

He can scent old blood, and the welling up of new blood as the one-eyed one and the others strain against the enchanted bonds that keep them in supplication.

“Do you accept, exalted one?” Abelas asks.

Solas has half a mind to say _no_ and that Andruil can take them back. He wants no part in the games she plays with Tevinter and the Qunari and the fragmented groups the shemlen call kingdoms.

He can only imagine how Mythal will react to that.

But what would he even do with them? Solas has no use for prisoners or war prizes. And he isn’t frivolous enough to waste resources by having someone watch them in some cell. Nor is he quite cruel enough to leave them to die, abandoned in a dark corner.

A small, condensed sheathe of energy rapidly approaches.

Solas reads what’s could pass as a laugh off of Mythal’s stoic servants when the door to the receiving room is thrown open.

He sighs even as the prisoners tense.

“Da’fen,” Solas sighs, relaxing onto his haunches as she bounds into the room, switching between four legs and two as she cuts straight through all protocol and solemnity. Her voice flows high into the air as her yips melt into words.

“Hahren, you didn’t tell me Mythal’s favorites were coming,” She chides him, “Invite them to stay, please? It’s been so long since we’ve had visitors and I haven’t had a chance to speak to them in ages, please let them stay and _\- “_

Solas bends his neck down and breathes onto her, “Slow yourself, da’len.”

He extends a curl of mana, sliding under her chin and under her jaw. Her stops talking, eyes slitting as she curls down, laying over his forelegs.

As he pets her hair, curls of mana unfurling over her scalp and winding through her braids - he’s honestly amazed at how many there are. She must have truly been concentrated today, or perhaps bored. - he turns back to look over the prisoners.

Some look at his da’fen with curiosity. Some with horror.

The one-eyed one studies.

Curious thing.

“Da’len,” Solas says, and she hums her acknowledgement, burying her face into his fur. “I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” She looks up at him, dip between her eyebrows - immediately suspicious. “What _for_?”

Clever girl. _His_ clever girl.

“These are offerings of peace from Andruil,” Solas says, turning her attention onto the kneeling ones.

“From the deal with Tevinter?” She asks. Solas curls a strand of mana around one of her braids and tugs. Da’fen wrinkles her nose. “Oh, _please_. Everyone knows about how Andruil plays with Tevinter. It’s all the chimes ever talk about sometimes. You can barely get any important information out of them.”

“Yes, from the deal with Tevinter. Sent to me by Andruil as a supposed token of peace. I accept them,” Solas says, “And give them to _you_.”

Mythal’s sentinel’s look as surprised as his da’fen does.

“You have always been curious about the lower world,” Solas muses as da’fen prickles with indignation, her mana curling and building, like hackles and barbs as she moves from her relaxed sprawl to a crouch - lip curling over her teeth. “And you often speak of how disappointed you are in my scant knowledge.”

“ _Hahren_ \- “

“Did you hear me, Abelas? Is my answer satisfactory?” Solas looks at the man who’s eyes glitter with half-heartedly concealed amusement.

“Your answer is received, exalted one,” Abelas says, “First of the wolf, what are our orders to proceed?”

Abelas and all the other sentinels look to his da’fen, expectant.

She looks at him, indignant.

“I do not want them,” She says.

“But now you have them,” Solas replies, “What shall you do with them?”

“You just don’t want to deal with them, so you are making _me_ deal with them in the disguise of a gift!”

“Yes,” Solas agrees patiently, “And Andruil had given them to me because _she_ didn’t want to deal with them. You are my da’fen, when you become me do you think you can so easily deny the problems deposited at your feet?”

She huffs, turning away from him.

Mythal is right, perhaps he _does_ spoil her.

Then again, who is Mythal to talk about spoiling children?

“Mythal’s sentinels have come a long way, da’fen,” Solas nudges her, “Will you make them wait for reprieve longer?”

She is immediately contrite as she turns herself towards Abelas, curling into her furs as she shyly looks between him and the others.

“I accept them into my service,” She says, “Please send them to the healer and master of servants.”

Abelas and the sentinels nod, softly bowing as they gather the chords of mana and start to remove the prisoners from the room.

“And when you are done,” She calls after them, “Please stay for a while?”

Abelas looks at Solas in the eye. Impertinent whelp of a boy. He’s always been one of the more esteemed sentinels to him. Mythal, too, spoils her favorites. He can only imagine how Abelas’ visits to the others go. Abelas, surely, has Elgar’nan frothing at the mouth.

“I permit it,” Solas nods, “Enter my home with peace.”

“As the wolf allows,” Abelas bows to him, and then to his da’fen, “And as the first of the wolves requests. We shall stay to ensure the prisoners transition well.”

The one eyed one is the last to be taken, clever eye still watching, taking them all in, drinking them all. Solas wonders how much he knows. Understands.

And he wonders what his da’fen will do with him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sometimes,” Abelas turns to Nuriel, “I wonder what I have done wrong in this life to earn such punishment as this.”

“There are worse things to be, brother,” Nuriel replies as she pets Ellana’s hair, “Than one of the favorites of the first among wolves.”

“What am I supposed to do with sworn swords?” Ellana whines into Nuriel’s leg, “I don’t need sworn swords. Do they even count as sworn swords if they’re prisoners who’ve entered my service?”

“Little wolf,” Gethran says, “You realize that you need to establish your own household eventually, yes?”

“Or do you plan on taking on the Wolf’s poor, elderly, overworked hands as your own?” Nuriel teases, “I pity the hands of the wolf if they have to serve _two_ generations of demanding, over-the top, whimsical gods.”

“Save your pity for your esteemed leader,” A new voice joins in. Ellana perks up, turning around as the other sentinels salute, “Favorite of the mother goddess _and_ the little wolf, you poor man, you must be torn ragged.”

“Neria,” Abelas dips his head.

“Abelas,” Neria returns, “First of the wolves, your new hands are prepared for you.”

“But what if I just gave them to Abelas?” Lavellan says, “For Mythal?”

Abelas groans.

“You’re turning into the Wolf, don’t,” Neria says, nudging Ellana’s foot with her armored boot. “He’s bad enough, I don’t need both of you being spoiled brats on my watch.”

“Only you, Neria,” Gethran says, “Only _you_ would have the guts to say something like that to the _face of the god-rising_.”

Neria snorts, “Someone has to.”

“Neria,” Ellana reaches up and tugs at the folds of Neria’s cloak, “What do I do with them?”

Neria shrugs, “Not mine, not my problem.”

“But what would _you_ do with them?”

Neria raises an eyebrow, “What I would do to them is not something _you_ would do to them, so there isn’t any point in you asking. And there is no point in asking anyone else here. We are not you, wolf-ascendant. We are sentinels, swords and shields.”

“This,” Nuriel says as Ellana groans and goes back to whining into her thigh, “Wouldn’t be a problem if you would _befriend_ the other ascendants.”

“Ah,” Ellana raises her head, “But have you _met_ the other ascendants?”

Everyone makes knowing sounds.

“Abelas,” Ellana looks towards the man, “When is Mythal going to pick her ascendant? I always write for you to tell me but you never write me back. How come _all the other sentinels_ write me back and you don’t?”

Abelas pointedly looks away from her to Neria, “I truly do not know what I have done to deserve this.”

“You made the mistake of feeding a baby godling,” Neria says, sweeping her cloak out as she takes a seat on one of the free benches, “Now you’re stuck with her good will and trust. I, personally, made that mistake on the current Wolf and now I can’t leave.”

“Worse things to be than favorite sentinel of the Wolf,” Gethran says.

“You don’t have to watch over him _and_ his brat,” Neria says, but looks vaguely fond as she turns on Ellana, “Wolf-ascendant, in all seriousness, what will we do with them? We cannot keep them in holding and observation forever. Andruil would expect to hear some news of their fate; whether you return them to their lands, kill them, or use them as your own.”

Ellena sits up and pulls her legs to her chest.

“Have you at least gone to see them?” Neria sighs.

“Yes,” Ellana says, “I did.”

“And did you try to speak with them?”

“One of them, the Qunari with one eye.”

The sentinels wait.

“And?”

“It,” Ellana picks at a thread on the hem of her dress, “Went?”

Neria sighs and presses her fist to her forehead, “What am I going to do with you, little wolf?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Ellana says, “I know I can’t have them in the observation chambers forever. I know that something has to be done about them. But they - they don’t know our language, I know theirs but they don’t want to hear it from me. I don’t know where they came from, not really, and I _know_ I have to keep them because of Andruil and hahren’s feud, but what does that mean? I don’t want to kill them. But I don’t - I don’t need prisoners. I don’t need _slaves_.”

The sentinels are silent, watching, waiting.

And then, abruptly, they are all standing, at attention.

Ellana closes her eyes and hunches down.

“First among wolves,” Neria’s says, “The Wolf enters. Your respects.”

“Leave her be, Surana,” The Wolf slides in through the shadows, “You are all dismissed.”

The sentinels bow, and disappear as they were trained. Silently and in between heartbeats, gracefully, without a whisper.

The Wolf stands, the darkness of his shadow filling the courtyard as he extends his mana out to Ellana.

Ellana returns it after a moment.

“Are you unwell, da’fen?” The Wolf tilts his head, “Show me your arm.”

Ellana holds her arm out after a moment, “No, hahren. It does not hurt.”

“Anymore,” The Wolf says, examining her arm under the careful touch of his mana, “What ails you?”

“These prisoners,” Ellana says, “I do not know what you meant for me to do with them.”

“Perhaps I meant nothing at all,” He says as he traces lines over her arm, carefully adjusting and correcting the mana channels that have come out of alignment. “Perhaps they were a gift.”

“But they weren’t,” Ellana replies, looking up at him, “They are a test, and I am _failing_.”

“Have you _tried_?

“I don’t know what you want me to try.” She lets out a frustrated breath of air, mist and a light touch of frost covering the cloth over her knees before it melts away. “I tried speaking to them, but they won’t speak to me - and I wouldn’t want to speak with me, either. I mean - I know. I know how they must see me.”

“Da’len,” The Wolf slowly pads around and sits at her back, the large breadth of his size creating a warm wall for her to lean on, “You are correct in that this is a test for you. I am concerned. You have no household, no sworn names. Where are your supporters? How do you expect to rule if you have no one to rule? My household follows me out of choice, because they know me, because they trust me.”

“The household _loves me_ ,” Ellana says.

“And that is all well and good,” Solas says, “But the household must grow. New blood is needed.”

“And you want to bring in prisoners as new blood?”

“It is not unheard of,” Solas muses, “Of course, they die quicker. But the things they bring to us are new. Innovative. They give us an edge over the others. Mythal has had many shemlen among her household in the past.”

And, it goes unspoken, many _daughters_ by them.

“Consider this practice,” Solas says, “For how to manage a household of your own, for how to earn trust and loyalty.”

“I dislike it,” Ellana says.

“Da’fen,” The wolf lowers his head close to her, one of his many eyes focusing on her, “You will become me. And when you do I want your power secured. I want you to be ready. This, as is the process of ascendance, is part of your training. Your preparation. You must be ready the moment I fall.”

“That is a long time from now,” Ellana’s voice shrinks, “You aren’t leaving for a long time. You’re still - young.”

The Wolf laughs, “True, but I may not fall to the sleeping death.”

And then soft, agitated silence.

“We still do not know where June came from,” Solas says.

Ellana closes her eyes.

“Promise me, da’fen,” He says, “Promise me that you will try. For your own sake, if not for me.”

“Yes, hahren,” Ellana stands up, adjusting the fall of her furs over her shoulders, “I will go back. I will try once more.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Leave us,” Bull turns his head when he hears a woman’s voice. He did not hear anyone coming into this room. But there she is. The woman from the - he thinks - throne room, the one who barged in and sidled right up to the wolf.

(He would think _lover_ , but no - their interaction wasn’t quite the same as that. And he’s pretty sure that reports would have said something about a lover. The stories they get from the elves who pass through never mention anything about the Dread Wolf having a lover.

Then again, they don’t mention there being _two_ of the Dread Wolf, either. So Bull is pretty sure that most of the intel he has is shit.)

The woman is young. It doesn’t mean much considering that elves are immortal. But she looks _young_ , half Bull’s age, maybe a little over that. And she looks -   _not right_.

She watches him watching her.

“What do I call you?” She asks him.

Bull just keeps watching her.

“I know who you are already,” She says, folding her hands in front of herself, looking down at them. One of them is heavily bandaged - the linen looks fresh, bright and clean with few signs of wear. But from the way she moves, it isn’t a fresh wound. Probably old, changed often. The bandage goes up her arm, disappears under the swath of fur she has covering her shoulders and hanging down her back. “Mythal’s sentinels also gave me your belongings. Yours and - and the rest of them. I know who you are, I just - it means something else to hear it from you.”

She looks off to the side, and then, looks at him, a spark that reminds him of the few minutes he was in that throne room in her eyes as she switches languages, voice changing - the quality of it somehow changing from soft wind over grass to the wash of water over stones, “Is it to your preference if I were to address you in this manner?”

Bull feels his skin prickle all over - sensitive, still, from the invisible hands in that room. The ones that were _wrong_ and solid, fingers sliding and examining his eye, pushing _through_ him and, and somehow _grasping_ at every bone and piece of flesh inside of him.

“No,” She says, studying him, returning to her accented and stiff use of the Alliance language, “I did not think you would like that, either.”

She turns back to her hands and sighs, “I - I suppose it would be unfair of me to demand knowledge of you if I give nothing in return.”

She looks back up at him, back straightening up as she - she _curtsies_ to him.

“I am Ellana,” She says, “Wolf Ascendant, First of the Wolf. I reside in the Glade of Contemplation, adjacent to the main sanctum. I like to hunt, and I like to garden. I - “

She pauses, “And. Anything more - anything more is -. It does not matter.”

She looks at him, expectant.

Bull continues to watch her. He can hold. He won’t crack. Not for some woman who talks a lot.

She sighs and looks back at her hands, and then sits down on the floor, right there and Bull raises an eyebrow.

She closes her eyes and then looks at him again - straight at him, no hesitations, all previous nervousness gone. Wiped clean. Now she is just simple awareness, certainty. Of what? Herself?

“You were given to me,” She says, “And I accepted you and the rest of the people who were handed over as my own. I am responsible for you. Do you understand that, Qunari? _I am responsible for you_. I am responsible for clothing you, feeding you, housing you, sheltering you from harm. I accepted you as _my household_. But my protection is not complete unless _you accept it_. And so we are left lingering, here. I have taken you into my household, I have extended my protection over you. But I cannot fully protect you unless you take my hand. No one - not you or I - can proceed forward from this moment until you either accept my offering or reject it. You can do neither if we do not speak to each other.”

“Fancy way of saying _prisoner_ ,” Bull finally says.

“You are not a prisoner,” She replies. “Why do you think that you are a prisoner?”

“Because I was captured, stripped of my weapons, chained, and then put into this cell,” Bull replies, “I would call that being a prisoner.”

“But you are not,” She says, “You were traded, examined, released, and you are kept here pending your decision to accept or deny my offer of sanctuary.”

She pauses, eyes narrowing for a moment.

“You do not understand. You think - you think you fought, and that Andruil won and took you captive. You think that - you think that this happened wrongly?”

He snorts, a violent and derisive thing.

“Ah,” She closes her eyes and shakes her head, “That explains much.”

She opens her eyes again, hands folding in her lap.

“You were given to Andruil, Qunari. Your people and the people of Tevinter and the other lower kingdoms have been at war for centuries. You have been at war with us for just as long. You have never united with each other against us, but that has not stopped Tevinter.”

A curious curl starts to rear its head in his stomach and Bull finds himself leaning forwards, towards her.

“We, of the upper kingdoms,” She continues, “Are aware of your - I hesitate to call it an alliance, as fragile and easily distracted as it is - people’s attempts at cooperation. Your _Inquisition_ against us. We have been aware for a very, very long time. But we are also aware of the other powers that fight and vie for the upper hand in your many, many, many other conflicts.”

She waves a hand Bull startles back as faint trails of light smoke over the floor, forming a simple map of Thedas.

“Tevinter has always faced the brunt of Andruil’s blood lust,” She says, “And Andruil has always been amused by Tevinter’s illusions of grandeur. She made a deal.”

The woman looks up at him.

“Andruil would temporarily leave Tevinter be to lick their wounds,” She says, “In exchange for something else.”

“No,” Bull says, because the Inquisition wouldn’t have agreed to that.

“Tevinter was the one who gave the Inquisition this lead,” The woman says, “It was Tevinter who supplied all the information, all of the preparation. And in doing so - the Qun loses you and many other of those Tevinter deemed as undesirable threats. As we speak, the Inquisition struggles with what to do with Tevinter who has betrayed them, and yet also cannot stand to have two thirds of its main donors renewing full on war efforts against each other. You are not a prisoner, here, Qunari. You are a _bribe_.”

“But that’s Andruil,” Bull says, “You are not Andruil.”

“No,” The woman shakes her head, “But that is a different story, Qunari. Politics.”

Bull can feel his eyebrows raising and the woman laughs, smiling -

“Did you think gods beyond such petty trifles? They are nothing without them.”

The woman pauses.

“But now, that leaves us here.”

“Right,” Bull says, “So now what?”

“If you accept my offer, you are part of my household,” She says, “You live with me, we eat together, we live together, we sleep together, we exist together. But you are also mine to punish, mine to exalt. Mine to promote, mine to protect. Your actions reflect upon me. Whatever you do, whatever you say becomes a reflection of who I am to the rest of the world.”

“Sounds troublesome,” Bull says, “So what’s in it for you?”

“You are mine,” She replies, voice steady, “You would not be a servant and you would not be a slave. But you would not quite by a free man. In this language, I think the word is _mercenary_. That of which, if what I understand from your documents, is something you already are.”

“Alright,” Bull muses, “And if I say no?”

She lets out a rushing sigh, “I suggest that you do not say no. I - I do not know what will have to be done if you say no. I imagine that - I imagine that it will not be pleasant for either of us. You more than me, but still unpleasant on both ends.”

“Politics?”

She grins, “Politics.”

And then -

“You, of all the ones sent to us by Andruil, are the first one I am speaking to. I mean, aside from before. I was able to speak to a few of you, but - it did not go well.”

Bull snorts.

“Why me?”

“You are their leader,” She says, “I understood that from before even looking through your things. It is in the way you carry yourself. It is in the way you look at me without flinching. I recognize it in you. Familiar.”

She tilts her head.

“And if that were not enough - then it was also the way hahren looked at you. Couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. You _interest_ him. And if you interest him, then you interest me.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“That remains to be seen,” She says. “If you say yes, then we both walk out of this room and go see the rest of your people. And then I will ask each of them, in turn, if they wish to accept a position in my household. I will tell them that you said yes. You can speak to them, discourage them or encourage them  if it pleases you. I will not stop you. And then, when that is done, you will be directed to your new quarters.”

She continues to look up at him from the floor, hands still peacefully folded in her lap, the light of the map that’s still conjured between them slowly fading.

Bull considers it. No one has ever made it back from being taken into the Elven lands. Well - there are some. They’re never the same. Fucking cracked.

He doubts that there’s going to be any help coming from the outside.

And -

Bull can’t leave his guys to this. Not alone.

They’re his responsibility. He made them each a promise.

“Call me the Iron Bull,” He says, slowly rising to his feet, “Ellana.”


	4. Chapter 4

Bull isn’t exactly expecting his guys to make it _easy_ on their captors - though he supposes he’s the only one who knows that they _aren’t_ exactly captors - but he isn’t actually expecting any of them to get a hit in.

Leave it to Krem to be the unlucky bastard who does.

Ellana looks stunned as the doors open to reveal Krem, half naked, and being restrained and a bunch of elves clustered around a woman holding her face.

Bull glances at Ellana and then goes over to Krem and his guys - only women in this room. Bull immediately senses what’s going on here.

“Chief,” Krem says and the armored elves holding him release him as Bull draws closer, melting back into the background, arms folding behind their backs as they assume what he guesses are neutral stances. “You’re alive.”

Bull snorts, glancing over Krem and then towards the others, looking for one person in particular, “It’s a long fucking story.”

Voices on the other side of the room rise, and Bull moves to put himself between them and Krem.

He catches Ellana’s eye and the woman looks at him and then attempts to look _around him_. He doesn’t let her. She turns back to the woman and takes something from her before moving to stand between the elves and his guys.

“She was offered these clothes,” Ellana says, holding her arms out, “She refused. But it is - it isn’t improper, exactly, to go around half dressed, but it isn’t quite accepted, either. Is there something wrong with these clothes?”

Bull takes the cloth, lets it flow out of his hands -

“It’s a dress,” Bull says, “And Krem doesn’t wear dresses. It’d get in his way.”

Ellana’s eyebrows raise, “This room is meant to hold women. Hahren and Mythal’s sentinels - as well as Andruil’s people - were thorough in their check of you.”

“He doesn’t wear dresses,” Bull repeats, crossing his arms.

Ellana watches him and then turns and beckons the injured woman forward.

“He was wrong to hit her,” Ellana says and Bull feels Krem start to open his mouth - because Krem is that kind of crazy brave - and he feels his own fist start to curl, but then Ellana turns to the woman, “And you were wrong to push. This was not a problem that needed violence. This was a problem that could have been solved with words.”

Ellana turns to him and leans, this time Krem steps out on his own volition.

“I apologize,” Ellana says, “The fault is with us. A physical check was done, but our people failed to ask. Please allow the guards to escort you into the next room so you may be properly clothed.”

Bull looks at Krem, and then nods.

Krem turns to Ellana and nods at her, Ellana doesn’t move but two guards come in through the door and give short bows, gesturing for Krem to follow.

“I apologize again,” Ellana says to Bull, “Are there any more like him that we should be aware of? And has there been any major harm done?”

“Not in this group,” Bull replies, “And that’s something you’ll have to ask him.”

“In your opinion, as his leader, what do you think?”

“I think that by acknowledging and not making a big deal of it you haven’t pissed him off as much as you could have,” Bull says, “And that you should talk to him, not me.”

Ellana nods and turns back to the other elves as Bull turns back to his people.

“Where’s Dalish?” Bull asks. The others shake their heads. She was with them when they were taken.

“What’s going on, Chief?” Skinner asks, “What’s happening?”

“It’s a long story,” Bull says.

“Make it short.”

“Tevinter sold us out,” Bull answers, “No one’s got eyes on Dalish? _No one_?”

“Fuck,” Skinner groans as the others make similar sounds of disapproval and anger. “And them?”

“Cutting us a deal,” Bull says, “Fucking - when’d we lose Dalish?”

“Dalish?” Ellana says and Bull glances at her over his shoulder, “You mean - Mythal’s girl?”

“What?” Skinner snaps.

Ellana blinks, “Mythal’s girl. The woman with Mythal’s marks. She was separated from the rest of you, pending inquiry.”

“Inquiry?” Bull repeats, turning to her fully and holding an arm out to keep Skinner from doing something stupid. Though if Skinner really wanted to do something, he doubts that his arm would actually stop her.

“Yes,” Ellana nods, “She claims that her clan was released from service with good will and protection. They have quickened, but they are not shemlen yet. We have sent word to Mythal to verify if this is true or not. Regardless, she is not hurt, I can have her brought here if you wish.”

Bull narrows his eye at her, tries to find the lie. There isn’t one.

Which means a lot of things that Bull doesn’t want to think about. He knew - they all knew - that Dalish was from here. They all knew that.

But hearing about it in action is different. Dalish was - _Dalish_.

“Do you want to speak to the rest of them? All at once?” Ellana asks him and Bull nods, gesturing for the Chargers behind him to just follow his lead. Ellana turns and speaks to the elves behind her and they softly bow before moving back and away, like the guards did.

She leads them into an open courtyard, and Bull counts the heads - all of them, even the ones that weren’t part of the Chargers who were sent by the Inquisition are here.

(Pavus, the loud mouth Tevinter sent, Sera the thief, even Varric.)

Pavus swears violently when Bull tells them what happened. Bull knew that there was bad - heh - _blood_ between the man and the rest of his country. He supposes that both he and Pavus didn’t think it’d get to the point of actually being thrown into the wolf’s den.

But here they are.

And everyone says yes to Ellana’s offer.

Ellana looks relieved, she curls her hand around her bandaged wrist and squeezes.

Bull doesn’t know how he feels, just yet. Mostly he’s still trying to put it all into perspective.

Betrayal from Tevinter - which shouldn’t be a surprise. The confusion of - all of this.

Two wolves when there should only be one.

Offers of _protection_.

Gods needing politics.

“So - what do we do?” Rocky asks Ellana directly, “Ma’am?”

Ellana looks down at him, blinking with surprise and _curiosity_. He supposes not many dwarves make it up here.

“What do you _want_ to do, stone child?” She tilts her head, like a dog. “You can hunt. You can garden. You can train. You can sew and cook and dance and spar and build and study.”

“And what _can’t_ we do?” Pavus asks.

“Leave,” Ellana replies, “At least - not yet.”

Pavus narrows his eyes, “Not yet?”

She squeezes her wrist, glances away. That nervousness again.

“Not yet,” She repeats, nodding.

“Then _when_?” Skinner asks.

She hesitates. Bull is surprised by how - _easy_ she is. He doesn’t know what he expected from her. But form the way she dresses, the way the other elves defer to her, and her fancy titles - he had thought more.

“When this house is strong,” She says and then softer, almost to herself but not quite. Like she’s _anxious_ , “When _I_ am strong.”

Her hand clenches around the bandaged arm and then she turns and looks back at Pavus, “There are _many_ conditions. Until then we are all to stay here.”

“ _We_?”

Ellana smiles, a sharp and hot thing, “ _We_.”

Bull narrows his eye. There is a lot more here. He can see the places where the pieces should be. But where are they?

If Dalish were here he’d have half of them by now, he knows.

“In the mean time, aside from whatever you wish to do - you will be taught,” Ellana says, “Our language, our dialects, our traditions, our customs. The things that will help you survive whatever happens.”

“If we are stuck here,” Rocky asks, “And if what you’re saying about protection and shelter is true, why do we need to _survive_?”

Ellana’s sharp smile turns ember hot as she turns it on Rocky.

“Make no mistake, stone child, it is true that we are in the heart of the Wolf’s den. But there are dangers that circle us from all angles. And if we expect to survive them, we must _always_ be on our guard. I’ve offered you protection, this is also true. But there are always those who seek to challenge me and the Wolf. And so you must also learn how to protect yourself. To protect _me_. Whatever seeks to challenge me will do it through you - and whatever tries to strike at you is a reflection of what they wish to do to _me_.”

She laughs, a sour and poisonous thing.

“In short, my new fellows, _politics_.”

He’s going to grow to hate that word. He just fucking _knows it_.


	5. Chapter 5

“So what does a - “ Bull pauses, and Ellana glances at him -

“First of the Wolf,” She supplies, “Wolf Ascendant. Ascending Wolf. It’s almost interchangeable, you can just call me Ellana, here. No one minds.” And then she smiles, quick, hinting at some joke that he doesn’t know yet - a lot of the things about her are like that. He supposes he’ll learn about the joke eventually. “Besides, it’s practically expected that the ones I would eventually take into my household flaunt the rules.”

“Right. So what does a First of the Wolf _do_?”

“Well,” Ellana says, “The same things anyone else does, I suppose. I read. I sleep. I eat. Sometimes I sew - I’m not very good at it, to be honest, beyond the basics.”

Here she pauses and then shakes her head, like she wanted to tell him something. She doesn’t. Some other better sense tells her not to.

“When Surana - that’s the Wolf’s Blade, ah - I suppose it would be like, a general? The head of an army? But for us, it would be the Wolf’s Sentinel’s. She’s the leader of the Wolf’s sentinels. When Surana permits it, I’m allowed to train with them, or even go riding and hunting.”

She pauses again, thinking some more.

“That’s it?” Bull asks as she waves open a door.

That’s another thing.

The guards from earlier brought them all to this place - a bit away from the buildings they came from, through some huge archway half-hidden through trees, and it felt like he walked _through_ something, but he couldn’t see what. And then they were in this courtyard with moss growing between pale flat stones and they went through a smaller arch, almost entirely hidden, and again that feeling of going _through_ something. Then they were here.

It’s pretty, he supposes, in the way you’d think a place of someone high ranking would be pretty. But it isn’t the kind of pretty you’d think of Gods and temples and palaces. More like - summer villa. Smaller than that even, _servants_ quarters in a summer villa.

It’s _simple_. The buildings blend into the trees and grass and plants all around.

And he can hear animals. Birds, the rustling of grass that suggests small things - rabbits, mice, quail even. Who knows? The odd buzz of a bee near a flower a few times as they walked through the buildings.

But aside from that there’s no one here.

Just the First of the Wolf Ellana, Bull, and the rest of them that were taken into her - _household_.

No servants. No guards. No sentinels - though he’s not sure how they’re different from guards.

There’s no one here.

Ellana hums, pressing her hand to an intricate carving on the wall, Bull steps back as it lights up softly from the inside - a soft glow, like a membrane - and then slowly opens to reveal a room behind it.

“I garden,” Ellana answers.

Bull raises an eyebrow.

“So why do you need mercenaries?” He asks. “Why not servants? Maids? Pages?

Ellana walks into the room and Bull follows.

There’s a bed - or what he guesses is a bed. Just a lot of furs and pillows clustered together in a rough circle on some sort of wooden - almost bowl - that’s as high as his knees. And there are some books and a low table near a window and a series of glass mirrors hanging at different heights, some fabrics draped on the walls, some rugs. A lot of plants.

But that’s it.

Ellana sits on the bed, shrugging off the thick fur mantle over her shoulders and lightly throwing it among the others. She runs her hands under her hair, throwing it back over her shoulders, she waves for him to sit.

There are no chairs.

He sits on one of the rugs.

“I am going to be very honest with you,” Ellana says, “I have no reason to trust you, nor for you to trust me. But this must work, you and I being part of the same household, I mean.”

“Alright,” Bull says.

“I have no use for maids or pages or servants because I am the only one here. Occassionally servants come from the main house, but mostly it is me. Alone. I maintain this place.”

That explains the silence.

“And as for the reason why I am alone here? I have not left the main living quarters of my hahren in _decades_ ,” Ellana looks him in the eye, “Before this, I was with him. At his side. I studied. I experimented. I ran with the rest of the sentinels, I fought with them. I practiced with blade and arrow and magic. I would go to market and I would go to the forum, I would go to the courts of the other Gods, I would attend conferences and meetings. I _functioned_ as I was meant to, the Iron Bull. From what I know of the Qun - from what I have studied and learned from our ears and eyes - you understand this. _Function_. Will you tell me what your function was, The Iron Bull?”

“Don’t you already know it?” Bull tilts his head. “Or is this where you want to know me through my own mouth and not whatever scraps you found in my bag?”

Ellana rests her cheek on her bent knee and smiles, sanguine and eerily beautiful the way he supposes most things here must be.

“Tell me,” She whispers.

“I’m a spy,” Bull says, “I spy for the Inquisition, and I spy _on_ the Inquisition. Most of them are aware of this. Most of my own are aware of this.”

“And has that always been your function, the Iron Bull? To spy?” She asks, eyes sliding open and closed, like wings. Not the quick blinks, but slow ones. The kind of a lazy, large thing.

“ _You_ ,” Bull says, “Tell _me_.”

“As you like,” Ellana replies, folding her fingers together as she hugs her knee, “You weren’t alway a spy. You became a spy because you were broken from your previous role. You were no longer capable of it. But you are too good to waste, the Iron Bull. I can see it looking at you - _I_ would not throw you away, either. No one in their right mind would. How long did you spend in your other role, the Iron Bull? Were you good at it? Did you enjoy it? Did you feel complete? Did you ever think you could be better - serve better? Is that the reason why you became broken from it?”

Ellana leans forward, just a little, and softly, it feels like somehow - despite the way the perspective _shouldn’t_ \- she seems bigger for it.

“Tell me, the Iron Bull, when you were what you were before - that which I will not say because I am not certain, because I want you to tell me, because I want to know it from you - did you ever think of all the ways you could serve? Of all the ways you could be improved upon?”

“Yes,” He says. And refuses to be intimidated. Refuses to be afraid. Not yet.

“Yes,” Ellana whispers, “I felt that way too, all those years ago. All that I am - all that I was - I could do better. I could be better, serve him better. I could _make him proud_.”

“Him?”

“ _Him_ ,” Ellana’s voice curls around the word, “You have met him. You know him as _Fen’Harel_ , I know him as _hahren_. In either situation, he is the Wolf. He chose me as his ascendant. Mythal teases him that he didn’t have many options. She is not incorrect. But he did not have to choose _me_.”

“Why did he?”

“I know not,” Ellana closes her eyes, “But he did and I want to make him proud, I want to be worthy. It is for that reason I am here. It is for that reason I have not left this place, it is for that reason that I do not go to the market or debate at the forum or go to listen to the new eddas or theories being examined. It is for that reason I no longer mingle with the others, why I am here in this silent grove, far, far away from everyone else.”

She opens her eyes again, “It is the reason why _you_ are here, with me, instead of out _there_ with _him_.”

Ellana gestures with her bandaged hand past him.

“He gave you to me. You are practice,” Ellana’s lip quirks up, “Because you are mortal and you will die, but by the time you do I am supposed to have learned how to manage a house hold. And my hahren does like to throw me in over my head - if I can manage a house hold of war prizes - Qunari and human and dwarf and low-land elf - then I can certainly manage a house of high-born refugees.”

“That’s - “ Bull searches his mind for an appropriate word and comes up with two. “Fucking shitty.”

Ellana laughs.

“It is,” She laughs, and then focuses on him, “The Iron Bull, I said - out there, to the others, that you all cannot leave until I can leave. I - I do not know when that will be.”

Decades, she’s been here.

“Why not? You haven’t said why you can’t leave to start with?”

“I am not finished,” Ellana replies.

“Meaning?” He prompts when she doesn’t continue.

“It means what it means,” Ellana says, eyes sliding away from him.

“I thought this was a bonding moment, trust and shit,” Bull says.

“And here is where the trust comes in,” Ellana’s eyes flick back to him, “I am unfinished, raw material. Not yet refined into what I am meant to be. So here I practice. On _you_ I practice. The Iron Bull - I am trusting you and your people, who are now my people, to protect me while I am here. I am trusting you to do this because if you do not we will all go under. I am telling you this because - from one leader to another - I want you to understand how important this is. Tell the others if you wish it, refrain from doing so if you believe it will cause more harm than good.  You know them better than I. I cannot leave here because - in the eyes of the rest of my people - _I am weak_.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Bull says.

“Whatever I was before,” Ellana shakes her head, “I am not now. Everything I had before - dexterity, training, control, precision - all of it is gone. Stripped from me in my - transition. I must regain it. Slowly. _Earn it_.”

Ellana pauses. “I have not earned it.”

She looks at him.

“Ask the question I know you are clever enough to ask.”

“How do you earn it? From _who_?”

“I have to prove myself strong enough. It is a slow and long progress - it may kill me, it may change me into something unrecognizable, it may destroy me. But the risk is worth the reward, the Iron Bull. And you have met the _who_. You have looked him in the eye.” Ellana lifts her head off her knee. “I said that your function here was to protect me so that I may protect you. There are many who wish that I do not succeed in my tasks. There are many who would try to - disrupt this process. And as much as my hahren seeks to protect me from them, his hands are often tied by that which we know as _politics_.”

She lowers her leg.

“I need you and yours to protect me from that which he cannot. I need you to help me. I need you to help me survive until I am strong enough - until I have enough control - to do this on my own.”

“Why?” Bull asks. “ _Why_ should I - any of us - help you do this? Aside from the whole food and shelter thing. The way I see it - we’re in as much danger as you. And why shouldn’t we let them get to you?”

“Andruil,” Ellana says, “You haven’t met her, but you know _of_ her. Andruil, Elgar’nan. Those two, I should think, you know of most. They are the ones who make war on your people. They make war on _everyone_.”

Ellana’s voice grows brittle around the names.

“You think that they are fighting you and yours - they are not. They are _playing_. They are _testing_. The true war is up here, the Iron Bull. Among the gods. Among us. The reason why, the Iron Bull, you and yours should be invested in seeing me live is because if I do not, then Fen’Harel goes to war. And if Fen’Harel’s armies move - the rest of them will. Regardless of whether they have a right to or not. The seven gods are not all at war - they are at a tentative peace. But they are _waiting_. And I am the weakest link. Imagine it - the Iron Bull. The host of all seven gods fighting each other. Do you know where that battle ground will spill onto? Do you know how many are involved in their games? _I do not even know_. I know how far Fen’Harel’s agents go - they’re in your Qun, the Iron Bull. They’re in Tevinter and the Alliance and the Inquisition. But what of the rest? Your kingdoms will become puppets in this war. And I - ”

She shivers and closes her eyes. Bull’s hands are fists.

“I do not want to fight. I do not want this future and I will do everything I can to make sure it does not come to pass. And part of that is this. Being alone. Being isolated. Being weak.”

He doesn’t like that image. He dislikes the idea that there are spies within the Qun, within the Inquisition. He dislikes -

His mind flashes to gas and movement. What could be eyes in the fog. The mist that moves as softly as it came in and somehow he’s still alive even though there’s blood on the ground. So much fucking blood but he’s still fucking standing. Every damn time. To what purpose? Why?

His mind moves to the poison in the fish, the dead children, the ripped apart women. The hundreds of vashoth the Qun lost. The Tal-vashoth born.

“Your role here,” Ellana says, softly - the air thickens in his lungs and Bull sits up straighter. There is a glow behind her eyes. Like the door from earlier. Lit up from inside. “Is to protect me. To stay at my side and watch for the dangers I cannot see. Your role is to know the beat of my heart like your own, to find it in the dark and to always be aware of it, to listen for that sound above all else and _hope_ that it never falters. To make sure it never wavers. Your role, the Iron Bull, is to love me with everything you have, to fight for me with everything you are.”

“But I don’t,” The words are cold and hard stones that he pushes out of his mouth, “I don’t love you. I don’t care for you. I’m here because I have to be. I am here because Tevinter sold us out. And sure, that’s a shitty - that’s a really fucking terrible what-if scenario you’ve just outlined. But this is just a job, First of the Wolf. And any sword worth their money knows how to keep a job professional. Feelings aren’t professional.”

“I _know_ you do not love me,” Ellana laughs, the light behind her eyes slowly sliding to the middle ground, not a suggestion, not quite a threat. Lighter and deeper than that. “No, not yet. But you will. _I am not yet your god, the Iron Bull. But I will be_.”

A promise.


	6. Chapter 6

Neria is honestly surprised that the little wolf revealed so much of herself so soon. It’s unlike her.

Ellana has always been honest, but Ellana’s honesty is another tool in her armory. The girl must be truly invested in this - or the man is simply harder to control than they anticipated.

She makes herself comfortable, back against warm stone, positioned low in one of the hidden servant passage ways among the trees. She slowly peels an apple, and flicks part of the rind out towards one of Ellana’s crows. The bird just watches her for a moment before moving to hop up onto one of the small look outs to watch what’s happening below.

Neria envies the bird’s ability to look without being seen. She isn’t going to risk the chance. These new gifts of Andruil haven’t settled in yet, and if Ellana is using her honesty this quickly in the game, Neria isn’t going to risk spoiling the girl’s plans by showing her face.

But Neria has other ways of getting what she needs.

“Dalish you lying fuck,” The man snaps as he enters the courtyard, “What the hell is this?”

And sometimes, what she needs falls into her lap all on its own.

“I’m sorry,” The woman they call Dalish says. She’s second generation - Mythal’s records of her are scant and few aside from birth and clan. “I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t attached you said, _you escaped_ you said. _You’re still one of them_.”

“I’m not, I didn’t lie to you - I swear it, Chief. My parents - my clan was released from service. I have the marks but they’re for protection. It’s complicated but I swear to you - I did not lie. I am not in formal service to any of them.”

“You need to start explaining, Dalish. There are a lot of holes in this fucked up story and I need answers because you know how much I hate going into shit blind. Bad enough we’ve got Tevinter selling us out - and no way to warn the others back at Haven - but there are _two_ of the Dread Wolf and apparently _politics_.” A dark grumble, “I fucking hate politics.”

“It’s - it’s complicated and there’s so much even I don’t know,” Dalish says, “Even I don’t know a lot of it. Chief, my family wasn’t that high up - we were just servants. Attendants. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Start with how there’s two of the Dread Wolf when there’s only supposed to be one. Are there more of the others? _How many of them are there_?”

“There’s only _one_ Dread Wolf,” Dalish answers.

“Then what does that make this - Wolf Ascendant? First of the Wolf? She changed shape, Dalish. She was a wolf and then a woman. I saw it. We all saw it. What is she - his kid? His - pup?”

Neria almost makes a sound at that. The crow ruffles its feathers.

She’s certain that Fen’Harel has a few bastards going around. It’s beyond her time, though. And whoever and wherever they are, they have obviously failed to secure their positions. They aren’t here anymore for a reason.

“No - yes, it’s.” Dalish makes a sharp sound of frustration. Neria supposes that it _would_ be hard to explain the intricacies of god-hood to someone from the lower lands. “She’s _him_ , but not yet.”

A brief silence, Neria imagines the man’s look of frustrated confusion. It probably looks amusing. Not enough for her to risk looking, but almost tempting.

“Run that by me again,” He says, “But with more context, Dalish.”

The woman makes a nervous sort of fretting sound and then the man’s voice changes -

“No, hey, look. I’m sorry I yelled. I’m mad, and yes I’m mad at you but - fuck. Dalish, what did you expect? I took you in because I promised honesty. You promised honesty. _I brought you along_ because you told me that there would be no conflict of interest - that you were clean. You aren’t clean, Dalish. And now I need answers. I need information to keep our heads above the water. Help me.”

“Gods are made, not born,” Dalish says, voice strained. “The Wolf Ascendant - it means she’s going to be the next one, after this one. First of the Wolf - Wolf Ascendant, they’re similar. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know. When my family left service - there were no ascendants yet. Firsts, yes, but no ascendants. I didn’t know, I swear, Chief.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you, I believe you. What is the difference?”

“First is like - like among the shemlen there are kings. If Gods were kings, then Firsts are the ones next in line to inherit. Then Seconds. Then Thirds. As far as the Gods are willing to go.”

“Alright, I get that. And ascendants?”

“It’s - it’s a rough translation. It doesn’t translate well into any other language. But it’s the actual - it’s the process of _becoming_. It’s like - if a First is someone who is slated to become the next god, then an Ascendant is someone who is _becoming_ \- in the process of it. Firsts can change. Ascendants cannot. They can’t be replaced, they can’t be substituted or switched out. They’re here until they die. They can’t turn back anymore.”

“So - it’s a process of making new gods, is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes.”

“So there’ll be the - first one. And then another one. Two.”

“No. There will only be one.”

“Okay, Dalish, you’re going to have to give me a bit more than that. When a king steps down he’s still there, unless he’s _dead_ and elves are immortal or something, unless they get killed.”

“No.”

“Dalish - “

“I’m trying! I’m trying to say it in a way you can understand. But it’s hard, Chief. I grew up with this. I don’t know how to explain it. And - I’m not sure if I should.”

“ _Dalish_.”

“I’m on your side. I’m with you until I croak, Chief. But there are some things - some things you keep close to the chest. Like Seheron. Like what you were like before. This - being here? This is that for me. My clan left this place, but not because we hate it, or because we dislike it. We love them, Chief. I still worship them. They are still _my gods_.”

Neria approves. Tentatively. There is still the check that Abelas has sent for, but in the mean time, Neria will take that tone of voice as advance credit. That is not the voice of someone cast out, someone rejected. This woman called Dalish is not a discarded branch.

Such loyalty as well. Ellana would do well to win that over.

“I don’t know exactly what happens,” Dalish says, “And I - I don’t know when it last happened. The _Gods_ are immortal, but the rest of us aren’t. We die, we age - slowly, but we age -, and we sleep. The Gods guard the secret of their Ascendants closely, and we only know them from what we are taught. But I can tell you this - this is the first Wolf Ascendant I’ve ever heard of.”

The man is silent. Neria cuts her apple into eights and cuts one of the eights into smaller pieces, tossing them for the crow. The crow, predictably, ignores her.

Ellana’s creatures have a tendency to have attitude problems, as if to make up for Ellana’s distinct lack of them.

She holds four slices out in her right hand to the air beside her.

“Spirit,” Neria whispers, “Tell the Little Wolf that this Dalish is safe, for now. She does not know. Her face remains her own.”

A flicker of green ghosts over the apple slices, making them each fade away like smoke.

“Unknown entity in an unknown place,” The man mutters, “Fucking great. I don’t even know where to start asking more questions.”

A new presence below.

“The Wolf seeks audience with the Iron Bull,” Neria hears one of the Wolf’s attendants call out.

She holds up a closed fist, rest of the apple discarded on the ground next to her - the crow immediately approaches and starts pecking at it. The spirit at her side glitters, softly, waiting.

“You don’t have to go,” Dalish says, voice rushed. Neria chances a look over. The woman has grasped the Iron Bull’s wrist. She can’t see the man’s face from this angle, but the woman looks afraid. “He can’t tell you to do anything. The Wolf is a god, yes, but you pledged yourself to the First of the Wolf. He has no power over you.”

The man puts his hand on Dalish’s shoulder.

“I’d rather not make enemies,” He replies. “Where do I go?”

This, _this,_ is news to Neria.

That rat bastard didn’t say anything about _talking_ to the Little Wolf’s new house hold. He _said_ he was going to leave her alone to handle it herself. Neria was just checking in out of precaution.

She is still in charge of keeping them both safe. Or at least - until someone steps up to take the Little Wolf’s blade.

It is a terrible job, but there is nowhere else she would rather be.

This is where her face belongs.

If only the pair didn’t make it so damn difficult.

She turns to the spirit.

“Warn your mistress,” Neria says. “I have a Wolf to box.”

The spirit disappears and Neria rolls onto her feet and runs to the nearest doorway into the Wolf’s quarters. With any luck, she’ll get there before the Iron Bull does.

She won’t let Solas ruin Ellana’s plans.


	7. Chapter 7

Bull recognizes the place he’s being led to - darker, now, since it’s mid-day, and emptier without the others. But this is the place they first took the blind fold off. That’s where they’re going. He remembers this trip in reverse.

Doors that are almost invisible - like the doors to Ellana’s quarters - open before they get close, parting to darkness.

“He waits,” The attendant says and Bull takes that to mean that he’s going in alone.

He walks past the doors, braces for - anything.

And there is nothing.

 

He walks to the center of the room, where he remembers having been forced to his knees days ago, and searches for anything else familiar. It’s dark - before there was light, but someone has covered the windows that were high up in the walls and ceiling, and there are only two braziers lit. One on each side of the raised dias towards the back of the relatively small room.

Bull glances over his shoulder to more darkness, the doors having silently sealed themselves shut behind him.

He waits. He listens.

There is no one here but his own breathing.

Until there isn’t.

“Fascinating thing,” A voice that is not a voice prints itself across the back of his skull. The same as before.

Wolves do not have mouths made for words. No one, he supposes, has ever told that to the Dread Wolf. The Wolf speaks without opening his mouth, his words somehow already _present_ in Bull’s head.

Bull turns and watches the Wolf walk out of the shadows, as if walking through a door - the black of the shadows part of the black of his thick pelt.

He doesn’t look away. That isn’t how you survive predators. Not by looking away, no.

The Wolf watches him, slowly carving his way into the room and around, in front of and behind the braziers - the light - at the same time.

“You are not like the others, the other mortals, the Qunari,” the Wolf says, settling his huge mass on the dais.

No wolf has any right to be that large.

“You would have been one of mine,” the Wolf muses, “If you weren’t gray and horned. And you would have risen high. But you are not one of mine. You are _hers_.”

“Ellana’s,” Bull says. It rankles, but at least he isn’t the Wolf’s.

“What’s hers is mine,” The Wolf says, “After a fashion. As is what is mine is hers. In its own way. You came even though your girl - Dalish - told you that you were not compelled to. Why did you come when I bid you to?”

“I didn’t think you’d take _no_ for an answer,” Bull answers, “And because I don’t believe in pissing things off with teeth the size of my head.”

The Wolf doesn’t quite _laugh_ but there’s this ripple through Bull’s skin that reminds him of invisible hands that sunk into his organs and he grinds his jaw shut.

“Are you afraid of me, the Iron Bull?” The Wolf asks. “The Qunari do not have gods, but now you stand before one.”

“I don’t know enough about you to be afraid,” He replies, and then, “I don’t think it’d do me very much good to be pissing myself every time I talked to a god. Word has it that the girl is supposed to be one, too.”

“My _da’fen_ reveals too much, too soon,” The Wolf says. The elven words do not translate in Bull’s head, and he wonders why. “She revealed too much weakness to you. I should have expected as such, but it was still troublesome to hear her show her weaknesses to you so soon. And yet you still do not take them to heart. You should be very afraid, the Iron Bull. There are other things in this world with teeth, and not all of them are as lenient as I.”

Bull narrows his eye - it’s only been a few hours since he and the First of the Wolf spoke.

“She did not tell me what she told you,” The Wolf tilts his head, many eyes glittering, “If that is what you are wondering. If she had told me ahead of time I would have told her not to, I would have given her a better way to win you over. Nor have the two of us spoken since, nor do I have spies in her quarters. As I said - what is hers is mine, what is mine is hers. I have no need of such things in my own sanctum.”

“In its own way,” Bull repeats.

“Yes,” The Wolf confirms after a pause, “The reason I know of every word she spoke to you, the Iron Bull, is because as she spoke them to you, she spoke them to me. I know when I am being called.”

“But you weren’t called,” Bull says.

“She spoke my name, called for me,” The Wolf leans onto his fore legs, “ _Hahren_ , _Wolf, Fen’Harel -_ learn this well, the Iron Bull, the moment the mere thought of any of these words crosses her mind, I am aware. I am listening, at attention. In her dreams, in her deepest of thoughts, most intimate of ideas, I am there. Always. There are no secrets.”

Bull can’t help but feel the sharp recoil of disgust in his chest - as much as he gives everything to the Qun, even he is allowed to keep small fragments for himself, and only himself.

“It’s bad enough the kid is locked up in isolation, you mean to say she doesn’t get _privacy_ either? I’m starting to think that she’s more your prisoner than - whatever it is she’s supposed to be.”

The Wolf rears onto his fore legs, every eye fixed on Bull - the words ooze into him, paralyzing and sputtering with distaste -

“Privacy? _There is no such thing as privacy when one is attempting to become a god_. Privacy? What use does she have for it? From _me_? You are under her protection, but she is under _mine_. She waived her right to privacy the moment she confirmed her intentions of godhood. Or did you think it was so easy - so _painless?_ ”

Interestingly enough - there is a twinge of - regret? Guilt? Pity? Sorrow? In those last few words. The Wolf backs down, slowly.

“It is a two way street, the Iron Bull,” The Wolf says, “But let us not talk about her, not yet. Let us talk about _you_.”

Bull feels his hackles rise. His skin prickle.

“What about me?”

“You are a curious thing,” The Wolf drawls, all previous anger - and sorrow - pushed aside. The Wolf rises to his feet and moves towards him. It takes everything Bull has to keep his feet planted, his body open. “Curious to me, and curious about the world. My world. _Her_ world. I meant it when I said you would almost pass as one of our own with a few - modifications.”

The Wolf laughs, a glass wave over the Bull’s shoulders as the Wolf moves in, so close Bull can see his own reflection in the Wolf’s eyes.

“You have eaten from my table and drunk from my well for three days, slept on my pelts for three nights, tell me, the Iron Bull,” The Wolf’s words are a whisper in his head, “What have you seen? Who do you see? You watch, you observe. Tell me, _Ben-Hassrath_ -“

Bull’s body locks up even as the Wolf chuckles, invisible finger sliding from one shoulder around his back to the other as the Wolf’s shadows curl around him.

“ - if you could, what would you report back to your Qun? That gods have politics? Heirs? Tell me, how do your eyes see my _da’fen_? What do your eyes see of her potential? Her choices? Her weaknesses given and not?”

“How do you know that word?” Bull asks, because the Qun guards their spies carefully. The Ben-Hassrath are not a name thrown around lightly. They are not meant to be known.

One of the Wolf’s many eyes blinks at him, a slow, bemused movement.

“Did you think, Qunari,” The Wolf drawls, “Your kind are the only ones who look and listen? How did you think my _da’fen_ knew how to speak your language?”

Bull didn’t know. It had bothered him, rankled - and he later put it down to her having picked it up from captured Qunari, or something like that.

He did not think to think of spies - traitors. Stupid of him, considering how he _fucking got here_ -

His mind flies to how many of them are compromised and how bad the damage is and how deep they’d have to go and -

An invisible hand curls around one of his horns and _pulls_ , jerking him forward.

“You will not think of such things,” The Wolf says, “When I am in front of you. Your attention, _Hissrad_ , would be most appreciated.”

Bull feels his lip curl over his teeth, muscles tensing.

“Yes, I know what they called you. I could tell you your entire life story, if you wished. Even the - how did you phrase it? The pages of your book that you had taken out. I know those, too. And now you wonder if _da’fen_ knows as well. Parts, yes, but the rest she refused to take out of respect.” The Wolf laughs, “Such notions will have to be - corrected at a later time. But for now she has the room to learn from such mistakes when the cost is not so deadly.”

The Wolf tilts his head, many eyes still fixed on him.

“What?” Bull snaps.

“I have called you here, the Iron Bull, to make you a deal,” The Wolf says, “You are sworn to my da’fen, not to me directly. My power over you is limited. You do not know or understand this yet - this too, will be corrected.”

“But for now it works in your advantage.”

“For now, yes. My da’fen will be correcting this soon, I should think. She is _possessive_ ,” The Wolf laughs at the flicker of doubt that Bull lets cross his face. “You will see, Qunari. At times she is more Wolf than _I_.”

Pride, pleasure, _warmth_. He’s honestly a little surprised.

“What kind of deal?” Bull asks, instead of commenting. “From the stories, people who make deals with you tend to get fucked over.”

“They are not nearly as good as making deals as you could be,” The Wolf replies, “And they had asked for favors, not deals. I have no patience for poorly phrased favors. Something else you will learn.”

“I look forward to it,” Bull mutters.

“As you should,” The Wolf sneers, “You are a weak, unsightly thing. You are a _vulnerability_. I dislike having such things present. But this is a learning experience for you both, and I will do whatever I must to ensure her success in her endeavors.”

“I can’t tell if you actually like her or not,” Bull says, “From the way you talk.”

“I love her,” The Wolf whispers, three hot words that slide smoothly through Bull’s mind like a knife in the dark. “This I tell you freely because it is important that you understand. She is _mine_. I _love her_. I claimed her. I _took her_. She is my First, my student. And as any parent would, I would throw that fool girl into the ocean if it meant saving her skin from what lies on the shore. I would kill her pets if it meant teaching her how to stand up for what she wants. I would hold the knife to her throat if it would teach her cruelty and strength of will.” The Wolf is so close that Bull can feel the warmth of him on his skin. “I would make a deal with a Qunari spy if it meant sparing her from suffering.”

“What is your deal?” Bull asks.

“Information for protection,” The Wolf says, sliding away, backing off, “Among you there is an elf, a woman, she whom you call Dalish, she who is marked by Mythal.”

Bull’s hands are fists as he looks the Wolf in the eye.

“What about her?”

“She is not safe,” The Wolf says, “If I had my way, she would have been thrown out of my lands the second her face was revealed to me. She is worse of a vulnerability than the rest of you combined are. She may have been freely released by Mythal, but any of the others would leap at the chance to claim that she is an escapee, or worse - _stolen_. My _da’fen_ on her own is not enough to keep the others away from her. She is not safe her. Chances are, Andruil sent her on purpose.”

The Wolf’s lip curls up for a brief moment.

“I, however,” The Wolf continues, “Have a reputation for _stealing_ , as it were. I will protect your Dalish - and _only_ her - in exchange for one promise from you.”

Bull feels like he’s about to promise something fucking awful, but -

Whether Dalish did or didn’t lie to him, she’s one of his. He made her and her family a promise.

“What is it?”

“There will come a time - many times, in fact - ,” The Wolf says, “When my _da’fen_ will be hurting. She will - become strange. Not like herself. You will know these times when they come. To these moments - I am blind. Why, you need not know, how is beyond your understanding. The one thing I will take from you for the protection of Dalish is this: when these moments happen, you watch her. And use your judgement. You call for me - even if she tells you not to. Tell me. You must call for me - wherever you are, whenever it happens. Call for me.”

The Wolf watches him as Bull turns over the offer in his head.

“That’s all you ask?” Bull says.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll keep Dalish safe?”

“From the actions of the other gods against her, yes,” The Wolf says, “No more than that, but also no less. Should any harm befall her that is not caused directly by the other gods, it will be my da’fens responsibility as her Keeper, not mine.”

Bull can’t help but feel like he’s about to give his soul over to a demon, but he breathes out and nods.

“I have to hear it, Hissrad,” The Wolf says, “Do we have a deal?”

“Yes,” Bull says, “We have a deal.”


	8. Chapter 8

Neria does not make it in time to warn Ellana, nor does she make it in time to catch the Wolf. Neria _does_ make it in time to almost get her arm cut off as the gates abruptly seal themselves closed.

She takes a moment to respect and admire the Wolf’s quick casting as she tries to scramble for some hole in the rapidly expanding barrier that turns all the portals off, forbidding her entrance.

And then Neria takes the rest of it to be irritated beyond hell that the Wolf did such a thing. How is she supposed to do anything if he’s barred her from using any portals?

And did he actually think that she’d let him get away with it?

Neria throws the weight of her mana against the doorway, feels it slide off, impossible to find even the smallest crack in the Wolf’s magic. She sneers, shaking out her hand - one second later and she would have _lost the hand_.

She’s going to _kill him_.

The sooner the little wolf ascends, the better it will be for Neria’s sanity - and she’ll tell that to both their faces, _gladly_.

Neria isn’t sure how long passes as she glares at the darkened eluvian, unable to make her way through - and not about to waste energy on trying - when the door glimmers and she feels the Wolf altering them once more.

She throws herself in and doesn’t hesitate to break out into a sprint as she moves for the receiving rooms.

Neria arrives too late, she can feel the magic of a promise - and she bursts through shadow in time to see it completed.

She swears.

The Wolf spares her a glance as he settles onto his haunches, towering larger over the already large Qunari in front of him. Neria looks at the man - he doesn’t look like he’s dying, which is a good thing. He also doesn’t look too damaged, which is another good thing.

“You’re a bastard,” Neria says.

“Is that so? I didn’t realize you were old enough to comment on my parentage, Surana,” The Wolf muses, “How’s the hand?”

“You damn well know how the hand is,” Neria snaps, “If I lost it, I’d make you replace it. What did you do?”

The Wolf hums, “It’s rude of us to speak in this language in front of him, isn’t it? He’s part of the household, now.”

“ _The little wolf’s_ household,” Neria says, but switches to the low land language anyway, “You should not have come, the Iron Bull. You were told it was not required of you.”

“Where I come from,” The Iron Bull says, eye steady on her in a way that’s almost refreshing, “When the owner of the house you live in asks you to show up, you tend to show up.”

“Interesting that he does not say god, no?” The Wolf says.

The Iron Bull glances at the Wolf before his eye lazily slides back to Neria.

“Where I come from we don’t believe in gods. In fact, we tell them to fuck off.”

Neria looks at the Wolf.

“I like him, if you broke him I will be upset. You hate it when I am upset. _Don’t break him_.”

“What she said,” The Iron Bull tacks on.

Neria thinks that she would have enjoyed playing with him, if he were not the little Wolf’s house hold, if she were still active in the field, and if she were assigned to monitoring the Inquisition or the Qun. Though she supposes there’s nothing that says she can’t still play with him, now.

The Iron Bull is everything that belongs at the Wolf’s side: wit, practicality, a keen eye, too much of a mouth on him to be safe, a cutting edge, and a _curious_ disposition.

If he were an elf, Neria might be worried for her position.

(And _there_ is an interesting thought. And from the way that the Wolf looks at her, it is one he has had already.

Neria forgives him, just a little, for his earlier slight. Though she will make him work for the rest.)

“The little wolf will be upset with you when she finds out what you have done,” Neria says, and then to the Iron Bull, “You do not have this magic where you are from. He has taken a promise from you - before she comes, because _she will_ , you need to tell me what it was you have promised.”

The Iron Bull looks to the Wolf.

“I never said that you had to keep your promise silent,” The Wolf says in answer.

“I promised to call him,” The Qunari says, “If something happened to her, if something happened to change her.”

“When,” Neria says after a moment, because she knows. She knows - there is only one situation like that, only one that is a cause of concern at the moment, concerning the little wolf changing. “Not if, _when_.”

The Iron Bull’s eyebrows raise, questioning, curious, intrigued.

“I know of what you promised,” Neria says, “And what was given in exchange?”

“Protection,” The Iron Bull says when the Wolf does not, “He’d protect one of mine.”

Neria turns it over in her head.

“Do you know who I am?” She asks.

“Your name is familiar,” The man replies, “You’ve been mentioned to me before. But I don’t know exactly what you do.”

“I am the leader of the Wolf’s sentinels,” Neria says, “What this means is not something you are capable of understanding just yet. But know this, once you leave these doors, be careful whom you speak to. I know that you have been warned - at least twice - of the dangers here. Just because _he_ is a god, and I am a figure of authority here does not mean we are the ones you should be speaking freely to.”

“And why _once I leave these doors_? What changes between here and there?”

“Nothing,” Neria replies, “Even here you are not safe. You are in the shadow of the Wolf. But as you are sworn to the little wolf, learn this well, she is the one and only person you should ever be loyal or true to.”

The Iron Bull turns her words over in his head and then smiles at her, the sort of smile Neria associates with Sylaise’ ilk.

“So is _she_ one of your priorities, or is it just _him_?”

Neria smiles back.

“If it became necessary to protecting him, I would slit her throat myself. And we all know it,” Neria answers.

The Iron Bull watches the Wolf for a reaction.

The Wolf lies back on his haunches, bored with the proceedings.

It is not the business of gods to care or know about the dirty things that happen in the name of holding them to the light.

The Wolf’s ears swivel towards the door - Neria cannot yet sense the little wolf drawing near, but they are running out of time.

“When she comes, do not tell her about this promise made,” Neria warns him, “She will not appreciate it, nor will she approve of it.”

“Too late,” The Iron Bull shrugs.

Neria eyes him, “When you leave this room, you will enter shock. Stay close to her to ease the effects. Promises are heavy things.”

The Iron Bull looks surprised.

Neria flashes her teeth at him.

“You are soft on him,” The Wolf mutters, disappointed.

“She would be triply displeased if he _fainted_ on top of everything else,” Neria fires back.

“And I am soft on _you_ ,” The Wolf sighs, “You didn’t used to talk back like this.”

“No, I just kept trying to kill you with my eyes,” Neria replies.

“Sorry to interrupt your banter,” The man drawls, “But if I’m supposed to be true and loyal and all that shit to her and only her, why should I hide this promise?”

“Because,” The Wolf says, “She will not see this promise as you being true or loyal to her, in fact, she will do everything she can to get you to break this promise should she learn of it. And - trust me, the Iron Bull - should you break it, I will actively go out of my way to make _sure_ that your Dalish’s presence here is brought to attention.”

The Iron Bull’s face moves from practiced calmness to white-hot anger and then back again in moments. Neria is impressed with that sort of control. She wonders if that will ever rub off on the little wolf. It would save them all some misery.

The three of them are spared any further words when a flare of energy rattles at the doors, bright and brilliant, Neria has to turn away from it, even though it is not visible.

Neria’s mind wavers for a moment as she feels mana crash against her, and the Wolf rises up, his own mana coming between Neria and the newer one.

“ _Off_ ,” The Wolf says, all at once _father_ and _hahren_ and _god_ , “She is not _yours_. Keep your hands to your own.”

Neria lowers her arms, raised in a futile effort to block the little wolf’s mana, as the doors crash open and the little wolf flies in, eyes wild.

“What have you _done to him_?” The little wolf hisses, “ _What have you done?”_

Oh, Neria thinks as the little wolf’s mana coils around the Iron Bull, this will be _dangerous_.


	9. Chapter 9

He took him, and he is _mine_ , mine, _mine_ , not _yours_ , he's _mine_ -

Ellana feels it when he is taken, and her mana snaps and snarls, because he _cheated_ her. He tricked her. Because he knows that Ellana cannot do what she wants - she cannot snarl and twist into four legs and claws - when she is pretending to be softer than cream. If she does what she wants to, here and now - four legs, many claws, more teeth - it would ruin it.

Compassion is whispering in her ear, telling her of what Neria has seen and what Neria is attempting to do, and Ellana feels the rush of the Wolf’s mana sliding over every gate, every portal, every door, every window.

Neria will not succeed in getting a warning to Ellana in person, nor will she succeed in preventing her hahren from whatever it is he has decided must be done.

Ellana has known that the Wolf would poke and prod and unearth something from the Iron Bull. He's shown too much interest in the man to let him slide into Ellana's hands so peacefully, so intact.

Ellana had hoped that the man would have enough sense to avoid such an encounter.

She knows what they say of her hahren among the low countries. They are not entirely wrong.

Compassion whimpers softly, afraid, and Ellana's face feel strained.

Too many teeth in such small gums.

But she does not want to frighten the new members of her household, not yet - not until they learn that they have nothing to fear of her. They should be frightened for her, not of her. That is not the kind of god she wishes to be.

It feels like decades, pretending to be soft-cream and gentle-leaves when what she wants is to be the storm that rips through and leaves scars.

But an opening presents itself and Ellana makes her excuses before she flies.

Nothing is forbidden in the Wolf's land - not to her - , and he may have barred Neria from passing the gates - the barrier slips and fades, Ellana knows she is too late, whatever the Wolf wanted to accomplish is done - but Ellana has been able to break and slip and pass through such barriers for years before she became First of the Wolf.

(If you want something of the Wolf, you must learn to take it.)

It is the function, the role - a thief in the dark, the shadow that does not belong, the slithering part of grass - she was born and sculpted to be.

She flies through the portals, and throws the weight of her mana against the doors to the receiving room.

The Wolf snarls, a crack of mana that stings across her cheek as it cuts through hers (a sharp warning that she ignores) - she senses Neria, though Ellana cannot see her past the blur of shadows of the room and rich green of the Wolf's mana and the own blistering brightness of her own. All of it condensed around a single man and Ellana knows, immediately what has been done.

"He took a favor of you," Ellana breathes, the bare skin of her feet cracking with energy as she forces herself to remain a familiar shape in front of him - he too, she wishes she could convince she was soft-cream and gentle-leaves, but it is hours too late for such coaxing. Ellana wants him to believe she is soft and gentle things but he is not the kind of man to be won over by such things. Ellana wanted to show him her many teeth slowly, to test if he was capable of holding such knowledge, to measure his reactions against the rest of the household.

The Wolf has torn those plans to shreds.

Ellana cannot contain this kind of storm in mortal flesh - something he has always admonished her on.

"Why did you allow him to take from you when you are mine?" Ellana asks, voice tangled with suspicion and anger and hurt and fear, " _What did he take from you_?"

And what, Ellana panics, did he take from _her_?

(Bitter and sharp, it wells up in her - memories and fear, because this is not the first time something has been taken from her when her back was turned, when she thought she was safe, when she thought she was _secure_. This is not the first time what should have been hers was slipped out from underneath her palms and turned to brittle pumice.)

She does not miss the way that the Iron Bull _does not_ look at the Wolf, nor does she miss the way the Wolf looms over them both.

"We made a deal," The Iron Bull replies, "I took something in return."

"That isn't the point," Ellana says, sliding her mana over his skin, searching for the shape of the taken thing, " _It does not matter_ if it is a deal or not. You should have not made it. Whatever he offered - I could have done the same if you had asked. What have you done?"

And then to the Wolf, " _What did you do_?"

"It is rude," The Wolf answers in the tongue of the low countries, "Of you to speak in a language your household does not know. Speak in the language of the quick ones or not at all."

"What did you do?" Ellana switches over, easily enough - it is the least of her worries. "He is _mine_. You summoned him - without asking me, you took a promise from him - his promises are mine. I did not permit this."

The Wolf's eyes narrow.

"Since when did I need your permission to do anything, _little wolf_?"

"Since you _gave him to me_ ," Ellana snaps, "Since you made me take the dagger meant for you and accept them into my household, since you decided to turn a poison-laced peace offering into a test for me. He is _mine, you - "_

 _"Watch yourself_ ," The Wolf's voice is low and every part of her that was crafted this way screams for her to stop, to kneel and bare her throat and beg forgiveness for speaking out of turn, but every part of her that is being remade howls for her to shove and push and stare him _down_. Ellana will take what is promised to her, as is her _right_. As is her own promise. ”Watch your tone, little wolf, remember to whom you speak."

Ellana snarls, a wordless thing as she puts herself between the Iron Bull and the Wolf. She has had enough of loss, she has had enough of cowering, she has had enough of being robbed blind.

"You do not touch them," Ellana hisses, "You gave them to me. They are _mine_ to protect. Even from _you_. They do not know you as I - they do not know the cost of your promises. _I do not trust you with them_."

The Wolf's lip curls up and his breath is a cold illusion over her skin as he rushes toward her, body splitting into three shadows of eyes and teeth, surrounding her and closing in softly.

The Iron Bull swears and Ellana's hand crack with magic. And the wild fear within that she’s trying so very, very hard to disavow threatens to pull her under - blind-white and frozen.

"You forget your place _whelp_ ," The Wolf snarls, "I allow you many things, I permit the most unruly of behavior from you because it amuses me. But you grow out of place, you grow ungrateful. You are weak, _pup - newborn with your eyes closed and mewling and simpering_. You have no power, no leverage to speak to me in such a way as you do now.”

"You promised me," It is hard to breathe, so much pressure on her chest - the Wolf's mana squeezes her chest, her lungs, compressing the air out of them. She struggles to keep her own mana strong, but his is stronger. Always stronger. Her face burns with humiliation, fear, _memory_.  It threatens to consume her, to bring her back to where she once was. She locks her knees and the words wheeze themselves out of her mouth. ”You _promised me_."

" _Yes_ ," One of the Wolf's eyes meets her, "I made you a promise. And I am _keeping_ it. How I choose to keep it is up to my discretion. There is a time and a place for your behavior, but it is never here, never like _this_. You do not _insult_ me in front of others with such behavior. You _never_ question me in this manner. I made you a promise, _girl_ , and I intend to keep it. Your life is mine. Your future is mine. _Your every breath until the day you die is mine_."

Ellana chokes on bitter memories, painful ones. The ones that scream of betrayal and knives into every single slat of her ribs.

Fear and panic, finally, push their way to the front of her mind. Her knees give way.

The Wolf senses it.

The Wolf condenses into one shadowy mass, immediately blocking the world from view, and a hand cups her cheek even as he holds her up - invisible and familiar as they are hidden from every eye.

"Ellana," Solas says into her ear voice steady and low, "I will not take the Iron Bull from you, not as your former master took _him_ from you. Do you trust me on this?"

Ellana's throat refuses to open, even though the pressure from before has left. Memories and textures slide through her shaking hands.

"Ellana," Solas whispers, voice softening, "Am I the same as your former master?"

"No," Ellana manages to choke out, voice trembling and fractured.

"Do you fear me?”

"No," Ellana says.

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"Because I was angry with you?” _And because the anger of every god reminds you of the anger of that one,_ goes unsaid.

“Yes."

"But you do not fear me?”

“No." _Never_.

Solas' thumb is soft over the scar that is no longer there. Another thing taken by the Wolf, but that one gladly, willingly. Enthusiastically.

"Ellana, I swear to you that the deal made with the Iron Bull will not hurt you in any way. I have taken nothing from him that can be taken from you. He remains himself. He remains _yours_ ," Solas gently touches the skin underneath her eye. "But you cannot react the way you did just now to me in the future. All the others already think you spoiled and ruined beyond repair, you must learn to control yourself. You cannot let them see you in such a light, _da'fen_. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Ellana whispers.

He is silent for a moment, and then he kisses her forehead, a dry and warm touch. Fake, but Ellana can't help but lean into it.

"I miss you," Ellana says, finally. A small attempt at apologizing without apologizing. The same sort of apology the Wolf uses. He smiles, a quick almost invisible thing that she feels with the soft curve of his mana against her own.

"And I you, _da'fen_ ," Solas replies. "But right now you are afraid, you are tense, your are wound tight. And you do not want to be near me. Take your Qunari and return to your quarters."

"When will I see you?" Ellana asks, knows better than to try and touch. He is not here. And he is right. As much as she does miss him - she does not want to be here.

This room, like so many other rooms, and this situation, like _the one_ memory she cannot seem to ever swallow, threatens to push her past words.

"Soon," He promises her. "Now go. And remember, _you are safe_. Our promise remains intact.”

Ellana closes her eyes as the shadows recede, leaving the room empty and her knees find themselves by the barest scrap of her remaining will. She turns to the Iron Bull - closer than she expects, right at the edge of where the shadows would have been.

Concern, fear, curiosity - they all mark his face and Ellana moves to walk past him, gesturing for him to follow.

She needs to be out of this room. She needs to be away.

She needs to forget.


	10. Chapter 10

The burst of setting light is welcome in her eyes - as are the sounds that had been silenced by the receiving room’s enchanted walls. The birds - _her birds_ \- the fountains - _their fountains_ \- and the general sound of life. Different and similar enough to every memory she has tried to leave behind that it manages to coax one more breath out of her frigid lungs.

The Iron Bull speaks, but her ears are ringing with too many memories.

It has been decades - _decades_ \- since the Wolf’s promise.

(The dry press of his mouth to hers, the strange feeling of loss as he breathes onto her skin. A wolf’s kiss. The Wolf’s promise.

 _Now you are first_ , the Wolf had told her, _leave the woman you were before behind. I have no use of her._

 _Yes, hahren_ , she had said. Anything - anything at all to get away. To escape. To be not-weak Ellana — anymore. Anything to leave those scars behind.)

Why is she still afraid?

( _No one will touch you when you do not wish to be touched_ , he tells her, _no one will take what you are not willing to give. You will be safe. Do as I tell you, follow my lead, do not question me; I will bring you what you desire most._

The dead, the living, to undo time.

 _Freedom,_ the Wolf promises.

Ellana had enough wits about her to take what she could get. Freedom was a good enough alternative.)

“You’re injured,” The Iron Bull’s voice is _too close_ , and Ellana flinches, ice sliding up her arms and neck, hoarfrost - and she turns and looks at him. There he stands, just out of his arm’s reach from her, looking down at her with his honest face and his honest eyes.

“Yes,” Ellana’s voice is a rasping shadow that she has been trying outrun since before his man was even _a thought_. The idea is amusing, she almost wants to laugh. She does not.

And even as she says the word, she knows it to be true - beyond the metaphorical sense.

The Wolf knew she was damaged long before their promise was made. He chose her anyway.

Ellana’s nails dig into the bandages on her arm. Tonight will not be a pleasant one. Doubly so, because she doubts that the Wolf will come in her dreams to distract her.

Hahren was right - they were both too angry to see each other, if either had attempted to make their way to the other, it would have been disastrous. Too many teeth in the same room.

Distantly, Ellana knows she was in the wrong. She knew better, should have known better, than to behave in such a way where eyes could see, ears could hear, minds could remember. But in her there was still that fear - and the anger.

( _It will kill you,_ the Wolf warned her, _that will kill you one day. And no matter what I promise, I cannot protect you from yourself_.

 _It is in the past,_ the Mother had told her, _this is a poisonous hold over you that you must let go. You are meant for better things than this._ )

Her palm aches, it writhes, it cracks, it shudders, it _desires_.

Ellana struggles to make a fist to contain such things. She succeeds, barely - the hand is numb where it is not cracked.

The Iron Bull watches.

“What happened?”

Her mouth opens and no sound comes out, she closes her mouth. Too many memories filling her head.

“Ask a different question,” She rasps.

The Iron Bull takes that in a stride.

“Was the Dread Wolf ever really there?”

“No,” Ellana says, “He is rarely ever physically present. He is elsewhere at the moment. Eventually you will meet him in person. Most of the time you will see - projections of him.”

“So it is possible for him to be multiple places at once?”

“Yes,” Ellana nods. It is a trick that she looks forward to learning. “Why?”

“Something he said,” The Iron Bull replies, “About him being with you at every moment.”

Ellana nods in understanding. It is not the same thing - but the Iron Bull does not need to know that just yet. Hahren rarely wastes his energy on sending her a projection. Not when they are bound by something deeper than such magic.

“Yes, it is true,” Ellana says, “I am his ascendant, he is aware of me at all times, as I am aware of him. We are bound to each other.”

The Iron Bull grimaces and Ellana smiles. Trust a spy to be wary of a lack of secrets and shadows.

“It is not all bad,” Ellana tells him, “I never get lonely in my own head.”

The man gives her an odd look, and Ellana’s face freezes when she realizes -

For everyone else, they have always been alone in their own head. None of them know - the empty, threatening maw that threatens to drag her under every second of the day. The emptiness that threatens to erase her, that sometimes only fear and the Wolf’s faintest touch of caution and awareness hold her back from diving head first into.

“I’m sorry,” Ellana says instead, “That you had to see me in such a way. It was - inappropriate. But - you should not have taken the Wolf’s promise.”

“You did,” The Iron Bull points out, “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

“Because you do not know how he will fulfill his promise,” Ellana says, “I knew the Wolf before I made my promise. I knew of him since I was created. You are a stranger in a strange land, you have not learned our customs. It was improper of him to call you behind my back, but it was also  - it was also _stupid_ of you to go, and to give what you did not have to give.” She searches his face, “You won’t tell me what was exchanged, will you?”

“Will you command me to?” The Iron Bull sounds curious, and testing.

Ellana’s chest squeezes, cold and sharp.

“No,” She whispers, lips wet with ice, “I will not.”

“Then no,” The Iron Bull says, “At least - not right now.”

That’s - that’s fair.

“You must have so many questions,” Ellana says, trying to ward off the cold that’s coming from inside.

“Understatement,” The man snorts, and then - “Are you gonna be okay?”

Ellana blinks, “Why?”

The man tilts his head, “Is that a weird question?”

Ellana considers it, and the frost recedes just enough for her to get a grip on her bearings.

“I will be alright,” She answers after some thought, moving to walk towards the Eluvian that will bring them back to their quarters, “But not right now.”

“Something tells me,” He says as he follows after her, steps purposefully loud, “That you’re a better liar than I thought you were.”

“And something tells me,” Ellana replies, “That you are a much better man than you pretend to be.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Is there any particular reason why you’re keeping me apart from the rest of them?” Bull asks Ellana. He refuses to fall for her game, not even when she sprawls over her pallet of furs, skin and silk and bleached bones and wild tangles that make him remember multitudes of unnatural - he knows know, _conjured_ \- eyes.

“What do you mean?” She asks.

The language of the elves is unwieldy in his mouth, but the Iron Bull has always been best at adapting, at changing, at becoming other people and other things. The Iron Bull has - under duress - pledged himself to the First of the Dread Wolf.

The Iron Bull must, therefore, learn her language.

Deeper parts of him, the parts that don’t leave no matter what, the parts that were built into him ground up, though. Those parts reject this language when everything they have.

The language of elves is rooted too much in lies, in deceits. It is too many guesses, speculations, metaphors, colors, illusions. It allows for too many loop holes and irregularities.

The spy he has been made to be appreciates these things.

The Qunari in him, and the Qun that made him, does not.

Bull sighs and repeats his question.

Her lip tips up - she has been _moody_ for weeks. He knows this even though he hasn’t been here long. It started after the promise. And true to both Ellana and the Dread Wolf’s word - she has not ordered him to reveal the promise, but she has been sliding traps underneath his feet to try and glean it from him anyway.

But traps work both ways, and Bull is slowly gathering pieces of this girl, this would-be-god. And none of them add up. Not in ways he is used to seeing.

But then again, the sentences flow here in ways he isn’t used to hearing.

“Why are you keeping me apart from all the others you - _acquired_?”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Ellana tilts her head.

“Yes, and I want to know why it’s _me,”_ He says, eyes fixed on her face as she stretches her legs, like a large cat rather than the wolf she’s supposed to be. Ellana tucks her arms under her head, slow and lazy and a complete lie.

At times she is that honest girl, that strangely desperate girl who first spoke to him, who gave him a truth for trust.

But there are many times - many times, that he notices when it’s only _him_ and _her_ \- that she is that other thing. That sharp, wicked thing that isn’t the same shade of bleached white from the receiving room, but the same kind of fucked up.

(That kind of bleached white, sick to the bones terror from the receiving room - that kind of wild, desperate, clawing at your own skin, _the beaches of Seheron and all that salt and blood on the lips as fog and people and blood and land slip through your fingers, as you bleed it all out and try to hold it together because no one else is gonna do it for you, it’s you and the sand and the fucking monster inside and all that grief - )_

It’s a her that isn’t _her_ , exactly. Some kind of underneath thing.

“Is it you, though?” Ellana asks.

Bull pointedly looks around her room.

“Looks like it,” Bull replies.

Ellana makes a show of covering one of her eyes with her bandaged hand - he’s never seen her change the bandage, but it must get changed because it’s always clean. “I don’t think you should be judging things on looks, the Iron Bull.”

She means more than his lack of an eye.

“Pavus sleeps in the next room,” Ellana gestures to one of the walls.

“Keep your enemies close,” Bull replies, because Ellana has him on one side - Qun - and Pavus on the other - Tevinter.

“That implies that we are enemies,” Ellana gestures between them, “We are household. We are not enemies.”

Bull is unimpressed.

Ellana’s mouth is a soft red thing, “I repeat, the Iron Bull. _That implies that we are enemies_.”

There are many ways to read that, Bull ignores them, crosses his arms, and waits for his answer.

“I told you when I approached you first,” Ellana says after a beat of silence, “It’s because you’re their leader. If I keep you close, I keep them all close.”

“Last I checked, you’re the one with the contract, _you’re_ the leader of this thing, not me.”

“Did you change the name of your band, recently? As I recall, they’re _the Iron Bull’s Chargers,”_ Lavellan’s soft red thing of a mouth sweetens, “And as much as you like to use your lieutenant as counterpoint to your image, _you_ are the one calling the shots. It is _you_ they trust.”

“But not all of them,” Bull points out, “They aren’t _all_ mine.”

“No,” She acknowledges this with a shrug, “But I have Pavus on the other side, and Varric across the courtyard.”

Bull feels his eyebrows raising.

“Did you think I put all of my eggs in one basket?” Ellana challenges, raising her chin.

“No,” Bull replies - _yes_. She’s smarter than he thought, and she’s proving it in unexpected and disturbing ways. He knew she was clever, but he didn’t realize how many games she was running.

He itches for more. _What else is she hiding_? Who else?

She laughs, “You’re too honest for that.”

Bull shrugs. It costs him nothing to lie to her here.

“First name basis with Varric already?”

“He’s very charming,” Ellana replies, “Ask your question, the Iron Bull. We both know you want to, I may even answer.”

“You aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket,” Bull says, “But you’ve got at least three different types of eggs in there and you’re ready to tip the entire thing to save one egg if you have to. Who’s that egg?”

Ellana hums, “You want to know if that egg is you? No. It isn’t. But you are one of the few eggs I would mourn.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t seem the type for flattery to me.”

“Every man wants to be flattered by a beautiful woman.”

“But I am neither beautiful nor a woman,” Her face takes a distinctly _animal_ cast to it - a suggestion of what he’s seen of her in glimpses. Bull hasn’t seen the woman as anything other than a woman since that first time. That first glimpse. “I am powerful. And I am a wolf.”

She says this, but Bull looks into her eyes and sees something else.

There’s something there, some loose thread in the bindings of her book that Bull’s training commands him to worry loose, to unravel. To steal.

“To the question you are not willing to ask because you think it will cost you - it won’t -, you are not that egg, but you are the egg I am prizing above all the rest,” Ellana sits up, “You are a curious thing in every sense. In this court, in this particular land, curiosity is one of the best virtues.”

Ellana’s hands card through the fur underneath her, “You are the weapon I need. More than power and poison and information and money and violence. You are the weapon I want. And the reason why I’m keeping you close is because before you can be a useful weapon to me you need to be trained and refined. You and I need to get used to each other. What use do I have for a bow I cannot draw? A sword I cannot lift? A knife I cannot handle? A bow that refuses to be drawn? A sword that refuses to leave its sheathe? A knife that denies a cut? Neither you nor I are ready for what I must do. For what _we_ must do.”

“We?” Bull repeats.

“I know you don’t see things the way I do yet, that you don’t love me the way I need you to you yet,” Ellana says, eyes drifting shut, “But in time you will learn. And hopefully you will learn it my way instead of _theirs_.”

Derision twists her words and Bull really needs to figure out how to corner Dalish so he can pick her brain.

“I need you to win and you need me to survive,” Ellana says, “That is why I keep you close. _That_ is why I chose you above all others.”

She opens her eyes, dark and tired and _old_ , “Now get out. You make me raw.”


	12. Chapter 12

Bull woke to muffled sounds in the night. The walls of Ellana’s temple are strong stone, clean and carefully tended without cracks or faults. Thick.

But he is still woken to the sounds from her room.

He lies awake for a moment, trying to understand them - he doesn’t know if this is a fight or not. On one hand - who would be trying to assassinate the First of the Wolf in her own bed? And if there’s that much of a fight, is Bull capable of stopping it?

 _Should Bull interfere_?

It could also be a really loud fuck.

After a moment, Bull rolls to his feet and goes to check. He doesn’t know the sexual habits of wolves that much, but he’s pretty certain that whatever is happening next door is not a fuck.

Pavus, mysteriously, isn’t out investigating either. Bull narrows his eye at the faint outline of the door further down the open courtyard.

He is not imagining this sound.

Ellana’s door opens underneath his touch -

(“ _What’s the use of a body guard if you can’t get to my body?”)_

When Bull’s eye adjusts to the darkness - darker than anything. Somehow darker than even the night. From Bull’s room light comes in through the back windows, and the courtyard has strange magical spirit lights that make Bull uncomfortable to look at for too long. _Veil fire._ He’s certain that Dalish or some other mage has tried to explain it to him before. He wasn’t listening. It is not his place to know that kind of thing.

Nor is it his place to want to know.

Ellana’s room is completely devoid of light, for all that he _knows_ her room is the same as his - windows and all.

It takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust as the door softly seals itself shut behind him, because there is light. Just - very faint. And blocked by Ellana’s curled body.

She’s fallen onto the floor, tangled in her furs and blankets, and there are strange flickers of bright green light through her skin, like lightning, that momentarily cast the faintest of lights to create the illusion of shapes.

“Ellana,” Bull calls out, voice rough with sleep, “ _Ellana_.”

The woman is having a nightmare, a grotesque one.

Ellana’s voice is a guttural sort of growl that does not belong in the mouth of anything close to man or woman.

Bull moves closer to her, feeling his way in the darkness, and the lightning under her skin flashes and he’s thrown back a few paces onto his ass.

“Ellana,” Bull repeats, “Wake up.”

Ellana snarls, and he hears a loud scraping sound, nails - not nails, nails don’t make that sound, _claws_ \- over stone.

“Get out,” Ellana snaps, the words rough - spoken through teeth and bone and frothing rage. “ _Get out_.”

Bull leaves, or more accurately, is _pushed_ by invisible hands - an invisible bulk, not hands, hands implies finesse. It’s more like something tackles him as he’s pulling himself up into a crouch straight out the door that he just came through, and into the - in comparison to Ellana’s pitch black room - bright night.

The door whispers shut again, but not before Bull hears Ellana snarl - and loud, echoing crash -

The lightning illuminates a single image.

Ellana has crashed her skull into the floor and started screaming.

Bull lunges for the door. It’s a solid thing underneath his fingers. A wall.

-

“Are we going to talk about this?” Bull asks when she calls him to report in. The First of the Wolf has been keeping to her rooms for most of the week, even before Bull woke up to the woman beating herself to death in her sleep.

The strange moodiness of hers has switched from flipping her between the gentle, polite and shy woman she’s trying to use to win everyone else’s trust, and the same sharp and pit-trap poison she sometimes throws at him when they are alone to a strange sort of apathetic and listless.

In the afternoon light, she looks even worse than he would have thought - except he had been fucking terrified that she’d bashed her own brains out in the night. So really the fact that her skull is intact should be a damn relief.

But there are new rugs on the floor, over where she roughly was last night when she was clawing and cracking her skull on the floor.

“Talk about what?” Ellana rasps, arm flung over her eyes. The bandages on her arm look frayed.

Bull looks at her, hard. “Last night.”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to ask about, the Iron Bull,” Ellana wheezes softly, voice coming out like it’s being strangled out of her, “What about last night?”

“Never mind,” Bull says.

Ellana hums and waves a hand for him to go on with his report

“Rocky fell off a parapet,” Bull says, “And Skinner got her ass kicked by one of the guards, I think she’s a little in love.”

-

Bull waits for the next night, and the night after. But he doesn’t hear anything new. No one else says anything, about any significant changes in her interactions with them, the few that she has.

The First of the Wolf mostly only drags herself out of her room to eat a midday meal with the others, occasionally talk or check in with them and their studies, before going back to her chambers. She relies on Bull to tell her everything else for the most part, seeing as Bull is on pretty good standing with almost all of the people taken captive in Tevinter’s deal.

Bull asks Pavus about it, once when he catches him alone -

Pavus gives him an odd look, dark brow raised, “Of course I heard it. I’m in the other room.”

“And you haven’t done anything _because_?”

Pavus’ other eyebrow raises in surprise, “You didn’t know?”

“Know _what_?” Bull asks, exasperated. Sometimes talking with Pavus can be fun, but most of the time it’s just annoying. Especially now that Pavus and Ellana have turned into something like friends.

He isn’t sure when or how that happened, but it has and he’s not sure how he feels about this turn of events. The Qun in him tells him to break them up fast because the last thing they need is the Dread Wolf and Tevinter joining forces. The rest of him is too fucking tired and preoccupied with everything else to worry about that shit. Especially considering that since the day he made the promise, he hasn’t seen or heard anything of the Dread Wolf or his sentinels.

“I can’t leave my room at night,” Pavus says, “I’m locked in until dawn as soon as I go in for the night.”

Bull’s eyebrows raise.

Pavus raises a hand and waves it, “You’re curious. Ask Ellana.”

The man gives him a considering look, “Given how much she _likes you_ \- for whatever reason, I can’t begin to guess - she might even answer you.”

“You won’t?”

Pavus smiles, pretty teeth Bull wants to punch.

“What would you give me in return?”

Bull turns around and walks away from him, giving the man the finger as he laughs at Bull’s back.

-

Bull almost lets it slip, almost writes it off as a one time thing, but he wakes up to not just a muffled sound, but a full on _crash_.

And voices. Muffled, still, through the stone, but clear enough that he can hear what’s almost a conversation, an argument.

Bull is in the next room before he can properly process it.

Ellana is curled at the edge of her bed - veil fire in one of the braziers casting an eerie cold glow in the room. Her eyes are fixed on him, and it’s not like that other night. There’s something off to her as she curls over her bandaged arm, the fingers of it flexing.

It’s like being in the shadow of the Wolf.

An impossible amount of eyes watching his every move.

“Ellana,” Bull says. “Are you awake?”

“Are you?” Ellana rasps back, voice low and strangely deep - not right, not her. Not exactly. Bull feels his hackles raising, his shoulders tensing, “Don’t be afraid, Qunari. I won’t hurt you unless you make me.”

Ellana twitches, head jerking violently to the side, almost throwing her off the edge of her bed and she snarls, twisting to the other side, snapping at something invisible before craning her neck to look at him again.

“What do you want?” She grinds out through her teeth, the strange lightning like glow from before absent, and instead a faint lingering around the edges of her.

Bull doesn’t need to be a mage to feel the magic in the air.

He doesn’t answer her and that seems to make her angry, ansty. She jerks again, hisses.

“If you aren’t going to say anything, get out,” She snarls at him, turning away from him, muttering under her breath, eyes turning to something invisible in the dark.

“No,” Bull replies, holding his ground even as her eyes slowly move back to him. “What’s wrong?”

“I said get out,” Ellana snaps.

“I said no,” Bull replies, “There’s something wrong with you. You’re sick.”

“Gods don’t get sick,” Ellana sneers.

“But you aren’t a god,” Bull says, “Not yet. Or so I’m told.”

“I’m still the lady of this house,” She says, “Get out.”

“No,” Bull shakes his head, “I’m sworn to you. And according to everything I’ve been getting from these _lessons_ you have us taking, that means I’m supposed to take care of you. Leaving you to break your own skull and scream in the dark doesn’t sound like taking care of you.”

Ellana’s lip curls up, her teeth glittering in the eerie green light, “You wouldn’t even know where to start taking care of me, Qunari. What would you know of me?”

“Whatever you’d give me,” Bull says, easy, “What’s underneath that bandage?”

Ellana snarls when he inches a step forward. Bull stops, hands up in the air.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” He says, looking her in the eye, forcing himself to hold still at the feeling of - of _something_ running over his spine.

“You can’t hurt what isn’t there,” Ellana snaps then jerks, hissing and snarling something, hands clawing at her face as she keens, high and animal. Bull takes another step forward and she glares up at him, teeth bared. “Get out or tell me what you promised him.”

Bull blinks, thrown by the sudden change in topic.

“You want to take care of me? Prove it. You’re loyal to _me_ , you’re supposed to be mine - what did you promise him?”

“Is that an order? I thought you wouldn’t,” Bull replies. “I’ll answer if that’s an order.”

“Because that’s all you know how to do, isn’t it? Answer orders?” Ellana laughs, a dark, not right thing. “It isn’t. I won’t. I said. I keep my word. You’d know that if you had asked me instead of him. Has he kept his side of the bargain? _Tell me_.”

“Yes,” Bull says, because he sees no harm in giving her that.

“What was it?” Ellana snarl-screams, leaning towards him, “What did he take from you? What was it? Protection? It was protection, wasn’t it. Not power. Not glory or gold. Not pain. I see it in you. You’re like me, it was protection.” Ellana twists, hands tangling and ripping at the blankets around her, not even looking at him anymore, but looking elsewhere. Everywhere else. He can see the tense and strained lines of her neck, her muscles from here. “It’s not you. Who was it? Pavus?”

She jerks her head, a shake.

“No, not Pavus. You two wanted to fuck but that wouldn’t make you make a deal for him.” Bull freezes, startled by her words and she laugh, a choked sound. “You think I didn’t know? Of course I know. _I know everything_. You’re both mine to know, _mine_. Of course I knew that. _You want to fuck him_.”

“Are you jealous?” Bull asks, tilting his head.

Ellana snarls words he can’t understand and then laughs - a croaking kind of thing, “I am a jealous thing. _No_. It isn’t Pavus. You wouldn’t make a deal for Pavus. Varric isn’t yours - _who is the deal for_?”

Ellana keens again, body twisted as she slides off the bed, dragging half the torn sheets and blankets with her.

“ _Who_?” Ellana screams.

Bull moves to pick her up.

If he believed in miracles, he’d think it was one that he gets close enough to get his hands on her. Her skin is hot, _incredibly hot_ underneath his palms and dry like sand. He moves to lift her back onto the bed but she twists and her hand moves up fast - he dodges but drops her.

Ellana twists on the floor, dragging her nails over stone and leaving deep _glowing_ gashes behind.

She melts the stone with her fingertips and keens.

Her forehead presses against the ground and before Bull can stop her, she slams her head down and croaks out words so fast he can’t understand them.

He catches _wolf_ and _raven_ and _please_.

The stone cracks underneath her skull.

Bull grabs her from behind, arms looping around hers as he tries to haul her back.

Ellana screams, a tearing thing, and the same force from before throws him. He collides with the nearest wall and his vision blacks out.

The air rattles from his chest and as he gasps in a new breath, Ellana twists on the floor, and he sees the illusion of many, many eyes over the side of her face when she turns towards him.

“Out,” Ellana’s voice is far away and whispered. A strange change from what it was a few seconds ago. Her eyes are wide as she looks at him, skin looking clammy.

The doors start to open.

“Out,” Ellana repeats, something frantic and wild in her - and _coherent, the girl who asked him to ask a different question_ , fragile and dangerous but not the kind of dangerous that melts stone and screams.

Bull tries to get up, he must not do it fast enough because Ellana reaches out a hand _gestures_. Bull feels himself get thrown out of the room, skidding and rolling into the courtyard even as the doors close behind him.

He doesn’t get up.

-

“Stop lying to me,” Bull says, tired and sore and frustrated.

Ellana is a washed out version of the girl he saw bounding into the receiving room, flying over their heads and sliding up to the Dread Wolf with impunity. There are even more rugs on the floor - and tapestries on the walls - to hide the damage done from last night.

“You make it awfully hard to protect you if you’re so damn insistent on killing yourself. I’m starting to think that all those dangers you’ve been talking about wont get a chance to murder you because you’re going to do it yourself.”

“Is that what I’ve been doing?” Ellana examines her own arms before allowing them to listlessly fall back to her sides, “I’m doing an awful job of it, then. Since I’m completely unharmed.”

Bull is unimpressed.

He flips the edge of the rug back with the tip of his boot.

The floor underneath it is whole. Undamaged, perfect - as if last night didn’t happen.

When he looks up at Ellana she’s smirking at him but she closes her eyes once their eyes meet.

“Would you like to check the entire room?”

Bull isn’t going to bother.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you were asleep last night,” Bull says, “No nightmares, no dreams, just you and sleep. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re alright.”

Ellana raises an eyebrow.

“I, First of the Wolf, Ascendant, Ellana, am alright.”

“You’re even more of a liar than I thought you were,” Bull says, when he can’t see any visible tells. They both know she’s lying.

Bull knows when he is awake.

“I am a wolf,” Ellana replies, rolling over and curling onto her side, dismissing him.

“But you are not _the_ Wolf,” Bull replies. “And I don’t think he’d take that kind of bullshit half-assed lie.”

Ellana stiffens.

“I’ll be going now,” Bull drawls, “ _My lady_.”

He turns around and leaves to the feeling of many eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

“The Iron Bull asked me why I don’t help you at night,” Dorian says to Ellana as they take in the morning light. Ellana looks like a paper mache version of herself, dull gray and flaking at the edges.

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’m locked into my room every night and I can’t help you,” Dorian answers. “He thinks it might be demons.”

“It isn’t,” Ellana says, but doesn’t elaborate further.

“Go ahead and keep your secrets then,” Dorian worries at the edge of his tunic, picking at threads that refuse to come loose. “It’s not as if you’ve been waking me up every few nights with your horrendous screeching.”

Ellana snorts, “I don’t screech.”

“Mhm,” Dorian crosses his legs at the ankle. “And you don’t look like something that got dragged out of a lake after a few years, either.”

“I won’t talk about it,” Ellana closes her eyes, eyelashes looking rather harsh over the dark circles underneath her eyes. In this particular moment - despite the idyllic scene of butter gold morning light and the occasional butterfly resting on a dew heavy flower - Ellana looks like a corpse.

“Whatever it is, that isn’t demons, is killing you. I don’t have to be the Iron Bull to see it,” Dorian says, “And if you aren’t telling me, I don’t see why you aren’t telling him.”

“Why would I tell him?”

“Because you are unnaturally honest with him,” Dorian replies, and when Ellana opens her eyes to give him a look he snorts, “I am a Tevinter Altus, I know politics. You want him to like you so you’re trying to give him as much as you can without giving it all away. You don’t need me to like you because you know that I’d like you for the sole fact that you’re giving me all this time and resources to research and everything else I could ask for. We both know that I’m not here to take apart your empire. I’m just here as collateral.”

Ellana closes her eyes, “We both know you aren’t collateral, Dorian.”

Dorian’s heart pangs, dully, in his chest. “Let’s just pretend I’m worth something, for my own ego, shall we?”

“If it means anything to your ego, Dorian,” Ellana says, “You mean a lot to me.”

“Thank you ever so much,” Dorian says, “Moving on. You’ve got plans for him. So why don’t you tell him this? It’s him you let rampaging into your room at night, after all.”

Ellana’s lip curls up, “Let’s not talk about this, Dorian. It doesn’t concern you or the Iron Bull.”

“Let’s talk about how if you die we all die,” Dorian continues, “As you so handily told us when we were first making our deals. You can call my concern _concern_ or you can call it self preservation.”

“You have terrible self preservation skills, Dorian. Baiting a god,” Ellana replies, eyes peacefully closed.

“Not yet a god,” Dorian points out because he _is_ paying attention whenever he has his cultural lessons.

Ellana lets out a soft breath.

“If we talk about it, we’re talking about why you’re so afraid of being enclosed in stone walls,” Ellana says. “If we talk about it, we’re going to talk about the smell of fear on you, the reason why you were with the Inquisition, and the reason why you gasp awake at night, hands to your chest, and the desperate urge to look into a mirror and make sure you’re still yourself.”

Dorian’s throat threatens to close and his head fills with thick, vicious fog.

Ellana makes a soft sound, “That’s what I thought.”

“Well. Moving on to other more palatable subjects,” Dorian croaks, as his throat slowly opens again, he looks down at Ellana’s head where it’s resting near his knee on the grass, “Do you think you could do me the wonderful favor of not locking me in every night? Since you know I don’t like being enclosed in stone walls? I promise I won’t run and hurl myself off a wall screaming for Tevinter or yelling elven secrets.”

Ellana opens a dark eye and blinks at him, “Is that why you think you’ve been locked in every night, Dorian?”

“I don’t see you locking anyone else in,” Dorian points out. “I understand your caution but even I wouldn’t be able to get a message to Tevinter from here.”

“Dorian,” Ellana rolls onto her back, the back of her knuckles brushing against Dorian’s leg as she looks up at him, “You aren’t locked into your room because you’re from Tevinter and you might be a spy.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a _mage_ , Dorian.”

“So are you. Goodness of all the places to have a prejudice against mages I didn’t think it would be here.”

Ellana blinks, “Dorian, all elves are mages by default. We all use magic. The word mage to us just means shemlen who can use magic.”

“Dalish is a mage.”

“Dalish is elven trained,” Ellana crosses her arms over her stomach, “Dorian, you are a _shemlen_.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Ellana raises an unimpressed eyebrow, “You aren’t trained in magic the way we are. We live it, breathe it. For whatever reason, you shemlen of the lower lands have decided to lock your magic away and stifle it. You reject spirits and the dreaming. Your magic, Dorian, is uncontrolled.”

“I’ll have you know I graduated with top marks from the academy,” Dorian protests. “Best control in not setting my school mates on fire.”

“Based on what you’ve told me about them I commend you for such remarkable restraint,” Ellana laughs, “But Dorian, shemlen learn magic differently than we do. We know how to control it, we know how to walk the dreaming, we understand the language of spirits. We do not fear them as you do.”

“Don’t tell me there aren’t any elven abominations,” Dorian snorts, “I wouldn’t believe you.”

Ellana looks at him with something like pity and Dorian feels a sinking thing in his gut.

“That’s not possible. All mages can get possessed. Do you mean to tell me in the history of the elven empire there hasn’t been a single possession?”

“Not in the way you understand,” Ellana replies, “They are willing. And they part ways. No one harmed, both parties the better for it. Dorian, shemlen only mutate like that because they aren’t - they don’t understand. Knowledge spirits mutated into pride, love polluted into envy, justice into vengeance. And because you shun this possibility, out of fear, you never learn how to walk the dreams, how to control yourself.”

Ellana rests her hand on Dorian’s shin and Dorian shivers when he feels the fine touch of her mana wash over him.

“This,” Ellana says, an invisible hand touching the side of his face, “Is child’s play. You think that I am so good at controlling it because I am First of the Wolf, you are mistaken. Even a child can do this, Dorian. We all can do this.”

Dorian has never met mages capable of such fine control in his life. The ability to use the force of their mana to affect the physical world like touch - to do it without visible manifestations. It would change the world.

He imagines how much - how easy it would be for mages to defend themselves. For them to be _strong_.

Ellana’s eyes search his.

“Dorian, the reason why you are locked in your room at night is not because I do not trust you, it is not because we are trying to hold you captive. It is because I am trying to protect you.” She sits up, turning towards him. “In the day, like this, I am with you. Or near you. Aware of you. I can make the spirits go away, ask them to leave you alone since you cannot. But at night, when we sleep - _when you sleep_ \- your mana is uncontrolled. You are - your are this flare of strange, new energy and of course all of them want to investigate. But I can imagine that - that seeing as the way you were raised to treat spirits, that would be very unpleasant for you.”

“You mean to tell me,” Dorian says, hands cold, chest tight, “That every night there have been swarms of demons wanting to enter my mind?”

Ellana touches the tips of her fingers to his.

“To me they are not demons, but to you - afraid and unfamiliar with such things, I imagine they would become so. And yes, Dorian. That is why you are kept in your room at night. I placed wards around the walls, and when the doors close you are safe until the morning when I am awake and able to defend you again.”

Dorian’s fingers curl into damp perfect grass and dark dirt.

Her face remains turned to his.

“I don’t want that,” Dorian says, “I don’t want you protecting me like that.”

“Will you learn to protect yourself?” Ellana asks.

“Yes,” Dorian replies. He - the idea of being at the mercy of someone else’s protection. It -

It is frightening. It is too much to place in one stranger.

It is too much to place in her.

Ellana searches his face, “It will go against everything you ever knew. You would have to start over from the ground up. Is that something you really think you can do?”

“Would you truly protect me from myself for the rest of my days?” Dorian replies, “I think we both know that isn’t possible darling. You can’t even protect yourself.”

Ellana’s mouth curves up, a quick smile.

“No,” Ellana’s voice is soft, and the tip of her small finger touches the tip of his. “No, I cannot.”


	14. Chapter 14

The majority of Bull’s lessons are with Neria - something that is both exciting in that she is sharp in all the ways the best of the Ben-Hassrath are, and unnerving for the same purpose. Mostly it’s unnerving, but it keeps him on his toes and he admits that the way she teaches is effective for all that it is unusual and complicated.

“How do you manage doing what you do with someone like the Dread Wolf?” Bull asks.

Neria raises an eyebrow at him as they sit across from each other, sharpening blades after practice. Apparently the metal elves make their blades out of needs a special sort of attention. The blade isn’t sharp enough until it can cut a leaf flowing through water.

“And I see that you have run into the little wolf’s infamous and hereditary closed lipped thick headedness,” Neria says. “What happened?”

“I want to talk about the deal,” Bull says and Neria’s eyes darken, sharpening like the metal in their hands.

“As you will,” Neria says after a tense moment where he thinks she’ll do something like cut his tongue out of his head, just because. “But mind yourself. We are in the little wolf’s realm, and she has eyes and ears where even I do not.”

“She’s locked me out of her room,” Bull says, “She has these - these _fits_ sometimes, and it’s fucking insane. But she won’t let me do my job unless I tell her about the deal. And as you and the Wolf have said repeatedly, it’s probably not a good idea. I want to know why. Why is she so fixated on this deal? And what the fuck is going on with her and that bandage?”

Neria raises an eyebrow, gloved fingers tapping on the flat edge of the hand and a half sword she uses to practice with him.

“A lesson you must learn, the Iron Bull, is that in the realms of the Wolf there is no such thing as _let_. Things are not _permitted_ , things are not _allowed_. Your limits are to what you can take, to what you can do. These things are earned, the Iron Bull. Not given. If you want to help her you shouldn’t be waiting for permission to do so. Act. Learn your place.”

“It would help,” Bull replies, “If someone would tell me what that place is. You all talk around it - promises and deals and functions, but no one ever says exactly what they want.”

“Use the head that’s attached to those ridiculous shoulders,” Neria says, “The quarters in which the little wolf stays used to be the Wolf’s quarters, and the room in which you stay was where I and my predecessors resided. What does this tell you?”

“It tells me something that makes no damn sense,” Bull answers.

The answer is clear. It has been clear. As clear as the sky above them and the water that runs out of streams Bull can’t figure out the source of.

It’s as clear as the glow of magic underneath Ellana’s skin in the dark.

The Iron Bull - despite all circumstances - is clearly positioned to become Ellana’s right hand, her sword.

“Why not?” Neria replies.

“Because I’m not here out of devotion like you are. In case no one’s noticed, I’m not an elf,” Bull says. “To state the obvious, I’m also here against my will. I’m here because it was either this or die, and I made a promise to protect my people and I can’t do that dead. I chose the lesser of two evils.”

“When you chose to take her protection, the Iron Bull, you chose to leave all those evils behind and find new meaning in the word based on what the little wolf dictates to you,” Neria says. “You are here as a test. If she can earn your devotion, she can earn anyone’s devotion. She will be worthy of those who fly the banner of the Dread Wolf.”

“And why does she need to be found worthy? Why does she need to be tested?” Bull presses.

“The little wolf told you that when you first made your deal,” Neria answers, “Politics. Many believe her unworthy of the title and position she holds. Why is not for me to tell, though I can. I will not tell you because it is not my story, and out of respect for the little wolf, I will leave her to tell it.”

Neria’s face is grave, strangely distant and untouchable, “It is a story that she is still living, the Iron Bull. And perhaps the only passable ending is through you and yours.”

“Tough,” Bull says. “We aren’t friends. I don’t care about her ending as long as it doesn’t fuck with my people.”

“Fair,” Neria closes her eyes, and when she opens them she is again the same unnerving and familiarity of a fellow spy, “That’s part of why this is a test. The more you resist, the better it is for her. That said, if you tell her of the deal, she may cut her losses with you and be driven into starting over. That, the Iron Bull, is why we warned you against letting her know of the deal. What you have promised the Wolf is not something she would allow, it is - in fact - something she sees as a threat.”

Bull, seeing as he doesn’t understand exactly what he has promised - the promise to call, to speak, to summon - can’t understand why Ellana would see a threat where there isn’t one.

Then again, Bull still doesn’t understand the relationship between the Wolf and Ellana. Not exactly.

The way she speaks of him is at times fond, loving, respectful - and at other times hostile, suspicious, bitter, fearful -

And again, those three hot words. _I love her_.

Even with Dalish’ help, the pieces don’t line up quite right in Bull’s head.

He has fragments of pages and he can only guess at what kind of book will be made when they are put together.

“As for the fact that she has blocked you from entering her sleeping quarters,” Neria continues, “That is an illusion she has willed you to believe. There is a second entrance, a doorway between your quarters and hers. It cannot be blocked.”

“Why?”

“Why is it there or why is it not possible to block?”

“Humor me and tell me both.”

“Perhaps the Wolf is right in that I am soft on you,” Neria says, then waves her hand and shrugs, “But that is because you interest me and you are an amusing distraction. It is there so that you may serve her, as I serve the Wolf. At all times, when they are vulnerable, when they do not want to be served, when they need to hear what they do not wish to listen to. Your job, the Iron Bull, is to push and test and ground.”

“A sword isn’t usually used in that way,” Bull points out.

“A sharp thing can cut out infection,” Neria replies, tilting the sword in her hands to catch the light. “And you are a sharp thing. The thing, you will find, with Gods is that the thing they need protection most is from themselves.”

Neria looks up at him.

“As for the reason why it cannot be blocked, it can only be locked from _your_ side.”

“Aside from the fact that you all seem to expect me to do something I have no intention of doing if it doesn’t become necessary,” Bull says, “Why are you telling me all of this? It isn’t for free. You don’t tell people things for free.”

“Because I’m like you?” Neria tilts her head. “You’re right. I don’t tell people things for free. But you, the Iron Bull - I’m telling you because you will die. Your life is as short as a dog’s in our eyes. You may be the first to be placed in the position of the little wolf’s sword, but you will most certainly not be the last. Consider yourself a place warmer. A practice blade.”

Neria smirks at the displeasure that must show on his face.

“The next time the little wolf struggles in the night,” She says, sheathing the blade and standing up, sharing apparently over, “Make your choice. Will you settle with being a dull practice sword, something she can toss aside at any moment as she wills it? Or will you rise to the occasion and be a sharp, cutting thing?”

“What’s the point if I’m not meant to last anyway?” Bull asks.

Neria snorts, “You are not the type of man to go out with a whisper, the Iron Bull. Are you actually going to make it easy for her?”

Bull turns Neria’s words over, quickly, like cards, in his head.

“Did you make it easy on him?”

Neria is all teeth.

“The Wolf still has scars from where I cut. And I never let him forget it.”


	15. Chapter 15

Suspicion over the Iron Bull’s words edges around the sharp corners of Neria’s mind, but the little wolf is not her priority - she never has been, and with the introduction of the Iron Bull as a candidate for the woman’s possible sword, she never will be.

Neria’s responsibility to the girl begins and ends with the girl’s hahren, and the two are more similar than either would like to think in their vast mule-headed stubbornness.

She doesn’t even have time to brace herself for the whirlwind of _energy_ that bombards her when she enters the room the Wolf has been creating a wreck for the past few hours. He’s practically sent every single one of the servants up the walls and down again with how _hyper_ he’s been for the past few weeks.

Andruil’s false offering of peace has sent him off the edge in ways that take _months_ for him to come down from. Neria understands this, and sometimes she can almost sympathize with it.

The Wolf, apparently, can’t even find the focus to create a visible form for her to address - his presence is just a colorful aurora of mana, cresting in waves and looping circles around the room, sending papers scattering to the ground and then back up again in cycles of wind. Neria staggers back when that aura hits her, and his thoughts crowd against her mind.

Neria closes her eyes and tries to parse out the words, “You’re thinking too fast.”

The euphony pauses, not an exact stop but a slowing, before starting up again. Except this time Neria can pick out a train of thought -

“I almost have her trail, Neria,” the Wolf says, “But she is not acting alone. Or she’s brought others in with her. And with the timing - would she stoop so low? Yes, she would. I don’t even know why I would question it. That wretch would absolutely stoop so low. Who is she working with? Which one of them is the one I need to focus on? All of these pissants coming together at once - I do not have the time nor patience to deal with them as it is. What has she promised? Who has promised anything to her? I need to know, Neria. I _must_ know - “ The Wolf abruptly breaks off. “Abelas sent word. Have you read this? Even Mythal is worried. Mythal never worries. It’s been her prerogative since the dawn of the Second age for her to not worry. Mythal’s worries have long since passed - I’m almost _envious_ of the hag.”

Neria doesn’t quite flinch at the way he addresses the Mother, but the Wolf notices and laughs.

“Look at her and tell me she isn’t an old bag of dust,” the Wolf teases, “Granted, she looks better than _some_ for her age, but still.”

“You say that, but you worry more than anyone about the Mother,” Neria replies.

“I never said I didn’t worry about the woman,” the Wolf says, “Remind me to send something to her. But first - I am so close on her trail, Neria. So very, very close. If I could just _go_ and look myself, if could just - “

“You can’t and you know it,” Neria says, choosing to fix her gaze on a piece of parchment a coalition of green and orange lights worries at, “You’re needed here. Speaking of being needed, the Iron Bull and I had words. He said that the little wolf is unwell and then he brought up the promise. I think that’s his way of saying he’s calling you, but I am not sure.”

This time there is a definite pause, even the Wolf’s faintest thoughts silence. And then they resume in full force.

“It’s too soon,” The Wolf protests, “It’s too soon.”

“She’s been using her magic frequently,” Neria reports, “The servants who assist in the Glade say that she wards the Tevinter’s rooms every night.”

The Wolf snarls, a snap of impatience that tinges all the wisps and ribbons and coils of mana a copper red, “She should let him drown. It would teach him how to swim faster and better than her coddling.”

“Will I lose my tongue if I point out the hypocrisy of such a statement?”

“Yes,” The Wolf snaps without any real heat. “What signs?”

“I don’t know,” Neria replies, “I don’t know her well enough to tell. Isn’t that why you trusted a stranger to report to you?”

The Wolf doesn’t answer her, but the coils of his energy are a telling gyre of color and pressure as he seems to debate with himself.

Neria allows her gaze to wander as she takes in the damage around the room. She doesn’t doubt that the Wolf is close to figuring out Andruil’s next step in their ages long war, but she does have to wonder what he’s let slip in his focus on this. Perhaps it is his focus on the little wolf. Perhaps it is his focus on other things.

Her eyes catch a dark blotch at the window. Another one of Ellana’s numerous ravens. It watches her back with uncomfortably black eyes. She knows this one, one of the older ones. From - from _that time_.

The newer ones have less of a look about them, something that Ellana has slowly loved out of them. The newer ones are more Wolf.

She resists the urge to kill it here and now. According to the attendants who help Ellana clean her halls -

Ellana counts each and every bird at night.

(The little wolf’s vice has never been _things_.)

Neria isn’t sure if the Wolf allows the bird to be here on purpose or if he just hasn't noticed with how absorbed he’s become.

“Check on her for me,” The Wolf orders, “Be my eyes and see what I cannot. And let the Iron Bull know that I am aware that he holds his promise, even if he is _weak_ about it.”

“Yes, exalted one,” Neria raises her fist to her chest and bows.

-

Neria grinds her teeth against the blast of energy that sends her to her knees, staggered against the stone wall to hold herself up. She barely has the breath left in her to rasp out the invocation of the Wolf.

It feels like her bones are being crushed, and she gasps and almost falls forward when the pressure is abruptly released. Blocked.

The Wolf’s mana slams down over her, a wall between her and the little wolf. Neria wheezes in a breath, and crawls back up the wall to stand.

Ellana screams - or sobs - and the bedsheets rip underneath her as she contorts herself on the bed.

The hidden door next to Neria opens and Neria throws her arm forward in time to stop the Iron Bull from walking into this mess.

“You,” Neria rasps, “Were supposed to say something before it got this bad.”

The Iron Bull gives her a sharp look and Neria ignores the surprised violence in his face. She puts more force into her arm, even as the Wolf spares a thought to shield the Iron Bull as well.

“No,” Neria says when the Iron Bull presses forward, “This is beyond your depth, Qunari.”

The Wolf has made a faint and nebulous shape of himself over Ellana - she can even see the faint wisps of the little wolf’s pet spirit huddled in a corner of darkness not illuminated by Ellana’s storming energy.

“You took him from me,” Ellana yowls, body arching off the bed, voice cracking, “You took him, you took him, you _took him_.”

“Da’len,” The Wolf says, “Stop.”

“ _No, you took him and I want to know why, why did you take him, why would you take him, I’ll take him back from you, I’ll take everything from you - “_

 _“Da’len,_ ” The Wolf repeats, shadows amassing as he looms over her, hands forming to try and hold her down before she can do something truly foolish, “Listen to yourself. Listen to me. You must stop. You reach too far for things you are not yet ready for. You take what is not yours - “

“Take?” Ellana hisses, spits, “You know _nothing_ of _take_. I will take _everything_ , steal and rip and tear asunder everything. _All of it_. I will never be stolen from again, do you hear me? _Do you all hear me? Curses on you all, you old and facinerious cozeners_ \- You wretched stubborn-hard coxcombs - “

The shadows swarm over her, trying to silence her, to muffle her as the Wolf swears over her.

Neria flinches away from them and into the Iron Bull.

“It is beyond you,” She whispers, fisting her hand into his tunic and hauling him back as close to the wall as they can get.

“I want answers, Neria,” The Iron Bull says.

“And neither of them are in a position to give them to you,” Neria replies. “Read the situation. Use that one eye you have left.”

“I am using it,” Bull says low underneath the cracking sound of energy like rolling thunder clouds and Ellana’s muffled curses mixed with the Wolf’s tired ones, “And it looks like you’re stopping me from helping the person I’m supposed to be helping.”

“You cannot help her as you both are,” Neria says, “Know your place. It is not here, as is mine. In this situation both of us are dead weight interlopers.”

Before either of them can say anything else light cracks through the Wolf’s shadows and Ellana shrieks, “ _You took him from me!_ ”

Neria and Bull slam into the wall, air knocked out of them. Neria’s vision blots out and her ears ring.

Both she and the Iron Bull go down, or up - direction looses its meaning, they are both weightless. Or weighted.

A wash of cool mana brings sense back to the world as the Wolf heals them both at the same time he unleashes his own wave of energy, pinning them all in place with the precision of an eagle catching fish out of the water.

“ _People are not things!_ ,” The Wolf bellows, his voice no longer a voice but a torrent that slams across Neria’s skull as she blearily looks up, arm still extended - and before this, possibly broken, judging from how sore it is from the Wolf’s quick healing -, “Look at what you have done. Look at them. _Look at what harm you have caused. They are not things to be taken or sold or bartered. They are people_. _You have hurt them._ Remember yourself, your place, _remember. We, together, are the Wolf._ Remember our ways, our honor. We are _better than them._ ”

The shadows force Ellana to look straight at them, but the girl is long gone. Her face glows with power and blind-wrath, lightning practically spilling out of her mouth with the same feral animal noises that threaten to topple back into curses.

“ _Da’fen_ ,” The Wolf shakes her and she snaps her teeth, a spark of flame.

There is one thing that can reach her, a single word among all others. Neria knows it. The Wolf knows it.

It is at the tip of Neria’s tongue, to use it, because she knows that the Wolf - in his most cruel moments - never will.

The Wolf thinks that he can love his girl back into something whole, something lovely. He thinks that he can fix this broken thing into something useable again, something better. For all of the Wolf’s selfish and self-centered ways, he loves his pup more than either of them care to admit. And for all the ways he scoffs at the rest of the world, he holds his little wolf in higher regard than most anyone to ever draw breath.

The Wolf loves his broken things, thinks he can fix them and show the world that they can be fixed and are all the better for it.

But Ellana was long damaged and broken before she arrived at their doorstep, and she’s going to stay that way. Neria knows, has known, that Ellana never came here to be healed, to be made whole again. Ellana came here, made her vows, took her oaths, sold her eternal soul to the Wolf  for something darker, and much more satisfying, than that.

Ellana came here broken and she intends to break enough on her way out that she can take down everyone who ever glanced at her sharp edges with her.

The Wolf swears and Neria does not use the word that will ends this entire farce because she won’t give that word to the Iron Bull, not yet.

(It would rip Ellana to shreds to hear that word, here, in this place. So close to - so _close_. Neria does not care.

The little wolf is not hers to care about. Nor is she interested in having that situation change.

It would get the job done.)

“I cannot reach her this way,” The Wolf says, and then swallows her, even as she struggles, in a swath of shadow, slowly constricting and darkening and deepening until she is still. The shadows retreat and moonlight is allowed to enter the room once more.

Everyone’s ears echo with the sounds of her screams.

The vague image of the Wolf turns, a multitude of eyes fixed on her and the Iron Bull.

“You will never allow her to slip this far again,” The Wolf commands, fierce and angry and worried.

“Tell me what this is, and I’ll consider it,” The Iron Bull replies.

“The price of godhood,” The Wolf snaps, “And that is all you need to know. Neria, bring her to me. She sleeps, but not for long.”

“Are you sure?” Neria asks.

“Did I stutter, Surana? Bring her. I do not have the time for her to fall apart now.”


	16. Chapter 16

Ellana wakes up warm, not uncomfortable, but the sort of warm that can only come from not being alone. Her cheek rests on someone's chest, and there is a hand that slowly sweeps up and down her back underneath the strangely soft and weightless - unbound - fall of her hair. She can feel a cool wash of mana underneath her fingertips, familiar and intimate, and she opens her eyes - groggy, _safe, good, better and relieved, a thousand sighs and pounds off of her shoulders_ \- into her hahren’s quiet eyes and -

Jolts back, confused, shocked, _afraid_.

This is not right.

Ellana knows this it not a dream, because in dreams her hahren does not look like this. In dreams, the Wolf looks as he did before his many dreams, the Wolf looks the way he did at the beginning of Andruil’s war. The Wolf does not look pale and drained and haggard. The Wolf does not have the dark circles under his eyes, and the Wolf does not look this sort of disappointed and relieved at once.

Questions swarm her mind, but at the same time her voice, his voice, _their voice_ slides across her skull and out through both their mouths at once - “Calm down, Ellana, breathe.”

And Ellana recoils from it, from them, from him and her - confused as she tries to pick the parts that are _her_ and _him_ and _the Wolf_ apart and failing -

Worry and concern, both of them at the same time because she knows he should not be awake, it is not yet time, and also because she has gone too far and was almost lost if it hadn’t been for -

And anger, sharp bitter disappointment and outrage because _the Iron Bull told on her, he revealed her_ and _she lied to him, she deceived him and used his distraction to siphon off more than she should have and she did not listen to his thousands of warnings_ -

Ellana looks down at the Anchor that is no longer throbbing and cracking and splitting - the fine webs of mana that unspool from the scar on her palm dormant, sleeping, satisfied, faded to the dimmest of green lights she knows matches the scar on her hahren’s chest - out of her reach, now, locked away and sleeping. _She cannot use it_. He has -

( _People are not things!_ )

Ellana’s eyes shoot up to the Wolf’s face as they both remember at once, as the Wolf remembers, and horror blooms up in her chest, her throat - sour and hot -

She twists - painful, more pain, the earlier calmness, sedated almost euphoria and _sanguinity_ ripped away with reality - tearing herself from his arms and throwing herself to the side of the bed, barely managing to clear the edge before she vomits onto the floor.

She feels him in her heart more than she feels him with her body as he moves after her, arms encircling her, rubbing her back and patiently whispering to her.

“Let it out, _da’len_ ,” Solas says, voice low and gentle, “You are alright, now, you are well.”

“What did I do?” Ellana croaks out, mouth bitter and foul as he pulls her back, wiping her mouth and chin with the corner of a blanket that he tosses off the edge of the bed.

“Nothing you need to worry about just yet,” Solas replies, moving to sit back against the inclined pillows, pulling her towards him again. “Calm yourself.”

He arrangers her between his legs, against his chest, like she is the child he never had, the child she never was to him. He tucks her head onto his shoulder and runs his hand up and down her arm, dry and comforting - solid.

But he is awake when he should not be.

“You rushed it,” Solas says to the concern that drifts through both of them. “This is a process that must not be rushed, _da’fen_ , I warned you. Your body is not ready, not strong enough for this power. It must be given slowly. You will shatter otherwise. Tell me why you are rushing this - do you not trust me, _da’fen_? Is it because - is it because that time draws near? Are you worried because of Andruil’s move?”

“Are _you_?” Ellana whispers back, curling into him as pain starts to wake up within her, a knife from groin to tongue-tip. A bone-deep crack through her arms, her fingers, her nails. A burning, dry crack in the deepest layers of her skin.

“I could stop it,” Solas says, “You know I could.”

“To what purpose?” Ellana mutters, “Accept it as we always do. I do not care.”

Solas’ knuckle touches, just underneath her chin, a wordless chide.

“What did I do?” Ellana asks. “And how long - _how long_?”

“Three nights,” Solas replies, “Three nights it has taken me to undo what you have done to yourself and set it back to rights. I have taken back that which you have tried to swallow when you had no room. Greedy girl.”

He sounds fond. But she can feel how angry he is.

They are both angry.

The Wolf does not like to be taken from.

Ellana’s insides tighten, curled and constricted -

The Wolf directs her gaze to meet his.

“Why?”

“You know why,” Ellana whispers. Because I am afraid. Because I could.

“You used my distraction with Andruil,” The Wolf says, “Clever, but ill advised. Tell me - was I reading your mind, or were you reading mine when you felt the need to barter your own safety for the knowledge of the Iron Bull’s promise?”

“Both, neither,” Ellana replies. “I cannot be faulted because you did not think to look at me when I have always looked at you.”

“Are you saying I am at fault for you glutting yourself on power that you could not possibly hope to control?”

“Yes,” Ellana answers immediately. Solas raises an eyebrow. “Learn to watch your investments.”

Solas hums even as Ellana continues to try and push the parts that are _her_ away from _him_ and _the Wolf_. It’s so hard - it’s so very, very hard to tell. Where did she ever end? Wasn’t she always like this? There are parts of her she knows are hers, undoubtedly. But there are other parts - more parts - where it becomes questionable.

“I am not _them_ ,” Solas says, softly. A sharp reminder under silk as he takes her arm into his hand and twists her wrist up so that he can look at the scar of the Anchor. His hand holds hers open, their fingers lacing. “I do not watch you at all hours as they did because I trust you. As you should trust me. We both made a bargain, it is not one way. Answer me, Ellana. _Why_?”

“Because I can,” Ellana answers once more. “Because I can feel how anxious you are. Andruil lays a snare for you, for us. I know what she wants from you. I will not swallow that indignity.”

“It is not yours to swallow,” Solas’ voice is hard and Ellana sneers.

“I am the _Wolf Ascendant_. If she fails with you, it _will_ be mine.”

“It will not come to that,” Solas says.

Ellana does not believe him. He knows it.

He closes his eyes and she feels his tiredness with her own - as her own. He kisses the heel of her palm, a dry touch that warms and eases the pain her her bones.

“I do not wish to fight with you, we are both tired and drawn thin.” It is as much as an olive branch as she will get. Ellana takes it.

“Why won’t you tell me what I did?” She asks, instead, searching the crevices of her scattered memories for a glimpse of clarity from three nights. She senses them, just beyond her reach. “Why won’t you give them back?”

Solas sighs, and softly, carefully, returns the memories to her.

The Iron Bull and Neria - the Iron Bull’s face in open worry, curiosity, _fear_. Neria’s a sharper kind, _horror_.

And an overwhelming ache of sorrow and need and want and desire - fear. Longing. _Thirst_. A bone dry thirst for what she can never have again, and fear because of so many black feathers, all of them cracking like dust underneath her touch and that flimsy barrier that perhaps she could break if she just had enough power. Enough spine.

The Iron Bull and Neria both crumple and Ellana almost retches again.

Solas softly shushes her.

“ _What did I do_?” Ellana whimpers, shame and disgust at herself, _horror_.

“It does not matter,” Solas says, “They do not remember, Neria thinks you broke her arm and gave them both concussions.”

“But what did I _really_ do?” Ellana presses even as he curls around her, physically holding her together. Because it does matter.

Neither of them wish to be that Wolf. Neither of them could survive returning to that beast.

“You cracked their skulls,” He answers, slowly - both of them tightening and curling down and away from the world with the words, away from the action, the guilt and shame. “You snapped their spines and crushed their ribs. I was able to heal them before they could notice most of the damage.”

Ellana lows, a sound that scrapes from the bottom of her lungs. She closes her eyes and turns her face into his throat and keens.

He runs his hand through her hair, softly whispering platitudes of comfort that neither of them believe in. He rocks her, like a babe, and her heart pangs for what she has lost. For what she has yet to gain. For what she has done and must still do.

The business of god-hood has never been bloodless.

“Abelas has written to me with words of warning, Mythal suspects Andruil is working with the others.” He eventually says, an obvious and welcome distraction that draws a single spool of herself away from the horror of her actions.

“How come Abelas writes to you and not to me?”

“Abelas has other things to do, da’fen, than humor my spoiled pup of a girl,” Solas snorts, letting their joined hands fall into their lap, even as her hand squeezes around his. It sends sharp and deep pangs of pain up her arm, and he forcibly uncurls her fingers with a soft click of his tongue. “I think a move will be made soon. As you know I have been investigating it - be cautious.”

“You say that as if I am not always cautious.”

They both know why he is warning her now, this time. At this time.

Neither of them say it. But they both think it. Ellana winces from the same thought placed twice.

Solas squeezes her hand, sympathy, regret, and a softer, kinder thing that she refuses to look at head-on. Not right now.

“What would you like this year?” He asks, instead. “Another cat? A dog, perhaps? It has been a while since you last had a hound of your own.”

Neither of them breathe a word about what happened to Ellana’s last dog.

“I want to hunt outside of the Glade,” Ellana says. “Let me into your gardens.”

Solas sighs, a warm gust against the top of her head.

“I will have my new household,” Ellana continues. “It will be nice. And I’d still be close.”

“Very well,” He says, “Take one of the Mahariels with you.”

“Yes, hahren,” Ellana replies.

“Good, and while you’re in the mood to listen to what I say, come. Dream with me.” His mana unspools, and playfully curls around the edges of hers. Ellana closes her eyes and welcomes this much more thorough distraction.

She has time.

Ellana leans and allows herself to sink into the Wolf’s mana, and _dreams_.


	17. Chapter 17

Seven days.

Seven days of questions, of Neria being tight lipped and angry and liable to spark like flint whenever he looks at her wrong. Seven days of trying to get answers from Dalish or Dorian; Dalish swinging between confusing and frustrating, Dorian between sympathetic and flippant.

On the seventh day, the mirror - _Eluvian_ \- that Bull has come to recognize as the one between his people and the rest of the world, comes to life, and Ellana steps out of it.

Ellana steps out of it, dressed in white with her hair a wild tangle and the pelt of her shoulders almost blinding, her skin soft and healthy, and her eyes solemn like deer and soft lowing cows.

Ellana steps out of the mirror like a dream. Like a lie.

Bull’s first instinct is to rip her face off, to look for the real brittle, dark, poison thing underneath.

Ellana’s eyes glance over him before her smile blooms over her face and she goes to greet the others. Rocky and Varric and Krem and Stitches with the gentle sweetness of morning flowers, Skinner and Dalish and Grim with the private softness of ivy, Varric with the cheerful bob of poppies, Dorian with the suspicious, intimate, glance of tangled roots.

She is a point of still, bright, _dishonesty_ among their sincere worry and questions. Bull stands back, arms crossed, watching.

He’s been _hired_ to protect her.

He’s promised to protect them.

Bull watches. He waits.

They ask her where she’s been, she tells them that she and the Wolf have been training together, practicing, having lessons. They ask how she is feeling, and she says better. She asks how their own lessons are going, Krem replies _going_ , and Rocky replies _slow_ , and Dalish replies _amazing_ , and Dorian replies _better with you_.

He knows that his guys, his Chargers, don’t quite trust her. Not really. They know how to play nice, and Dalish - for all that she’s supposedly disconnected from this place, this world - is devout. Varric, he knows, has a healthy dose of survival instinct.

Varric did not survive Kirkwall to not have that.

Dorian - Bull can’t say anything about Dorian. But Dorian has made it this far.

They are sincere in their worry. He doesn’t think Ellana doubts that. But he wonders how much of it she takes to heart.

As the questions die down Ellana raises her hands to draw attention, focus, “We’re going on a trip. It was unfair of me to leave you here - especially when I said we would all stay here together. My hahren has permitted us to go hunting in his gardens. Who would like to come?”

As if that was a real question.

Bull waits as Skinner and Krem pepper her with questions about what they will be hunting, how many days, are there rules, how will they hunt, where will they be, what terrain, what weather, question after question.

And then - when that is finally over.

At last, finally - seven days over due, weeks over due, _months_ over due - Ellana’s eyes meet his and she softly gestures with a tilt of her head towards one of the hidden Eluvians.

She slips past the rest of them as they talk about what the upcoming hunting trip will have waiting for them, what to prepare for - turning ton Dalish to fill in the rest with her rudimentary knowledge. Her second-third-fourth-hand knowledge.

As they draw near the Eluvian, Ellana raises a hand wake it, and the other shoots out, seizing Bull’s wrist - surprisingly strong, surprisingly many things.

Ellana has never voluntarily touched him, not like this. A glancing touch, a light skim of skin barely there, a finger hooked into a snag of cloth, invisible hands -

She seizes his wrist and they fly into the Eluvian, jerked forward by power Bull is wasn’t ready to hold himself against.

He flinches against the cool wash of the mirror, and Ellana runs. Bull doesn’t think his feet even touch the ground as she drags them through paths - not even a path, through grass, twisting through trees, and over bushes.

Ellana, he realizes, is not so much a woman, but a half-animal thing, larger than a woman, smaller than a best, and her legs not quite legs, her hands, not quite hands.

Before Bull can focus on that, they are stopped in a clearing, and Ellana turns to him, woman again, her hands on him.

Her hands pass over his arms, her face open and intent. She sweeps her hands over his arms, applying pressure, testing, moving his arms -

“Does this hurt?” She asks, “This? _This_?”

“No, no, sort of - it’s sore,” Bull answers and Ellana’s face is very grim. “Neria isn’t the most patient of people.”

“Neria did it?” Ellana asks, eyes snapping up to meet his before she abruptly kneels down and starts touching his legs, pressing against muscle, against the backs of his kneels. “And this? Here? Does any of this hurt?”

“No - what are you doing?” Bull asks as she forces him to raise his leg, rotate his ankle.

“Any trouble breathing? Impaired vision - more than usual? Nausea?”

“No, no, _no_. What are you doing?”

Ellana stands up, coaxing his head down to her as she takes his face in his, looking into his eye.

“I hurt you,” Ellana says, voice bitter, face pinched. “I hurt you. You should never let me hurt you, the Iron Bull. _I am not supposed to hurt you_.”

Bull raises an eyebrow, “You bought me. You can do whatever you - “

Ellana lets go of his head and is suddenly half the clearing away, unsteady, face blanched white. More familiar to the woman she was seven days ago than the lie that came out, white and lovely, through the Eluvian a few hours ago.

“No,” Ellana’s voice shakes, “No. _You are not a thing_ , you are a _person_. I _cannot_ do whatever I want with you. I _will not - the Iron Bull,_ the next time I - the next time I become that way. The next time you even think that I am about to hurt you. You must stop me.”

“Why are you so afraid of me being hurt?” Bull asks, “Why are you so afraid of that when the reason I am here is to be hurt for you? That’s what a body guard does. That, I’m guessing, is what swords are for. Or do elven blades never chip?”

Ellana shakes her head, the fresh white of her bandages stark against her hair as she runs her hands through it, shaking her head, grasping at the sides of her head.

“No,” She whispers, “You - I do not want to be that person. I do not want to be that. That is what I am trying to escape, the Iron Bull. I am trying to escape becoming that. You must stand between me and that. You must not let me hurt you.”

Bull examines her - closer to the brittle panic that asks _another question_. This, Bull is beginning to realize, is the real Ellana. Underneath the politics, underneath the possessive and compulsive need to know, underneath the smooth veneer of sweetness.  Underneath, even, the poison.

There is this. This white, shivering _thing_.

“Since when do gods run?” Bull asks, testing, pulling.

“As I have said, as you have said,” Ellana’s voice drifts far away, careful, like someone walking over thin, thin ice. With who? Who is beneath the water of that ice? He is close. Very close to something. “I am not yet a god. When I am a god I will no longer need to run. I will no longer need to hide. But I am not yet a god, the Iron Bull. And I do not want to be a god that - that. Ideally I would not be a god that hurts people because I can, without restraint or conscious control. Pragmatically, I do not want to be a god that hurts people without conscious will.”

“You did all of that,” Bull says, because he remembers hitting the wall, his vision going black, and dizzy, confusing _weightlessness_ , before sore and ringing consciousness, “Without knowing you did it?”

“Yes,” Ellana answers, “ _I did not know you were there_. I did not see you - I did not see - “

Ellana closes her eyes, and she looks like a suffering thing.

Bull is not exactly unsympathetic. But he does not say anything, offer anything.

Ellana breathes, “The next time you even think I am getting close to that point, you must stop me.”

“The last time I tried to stop you, you threw me out of your room. Literally. My ass remembers it, almost fondly,” Bull replies.

Ellana shakes her head, “You did not have the tools then. I will give them to you now. There are three things you must say to me. You must not hesitate to say them. When I am like that - I am not in control. I am not rational. I am not thinking. These three things, in this order, will stop me. You’re clever and silver in tongue, the Iron Bull, you will find a way to work these into the situation. And they will save your life. Listen well. I will say them once, and only once.”

Ellana’s eyes are so very haunted, so very familiar.

“I will not survive saying them twice.”

Her mouth is bloodless. Her eyes are dark. And her hands are stiff.

Bull takes this all in.

He nods once.

“First,” Ellana breathes, “When I begin to press, to push, you must say _even if I am unwilling_? If I continue, if I do not stop there - I will protest. I will tell you that what I will is what you will. I will get angry, I will try to coerce you. I will threaten you and everyone around you.”

Ellana drags in a deep rattling breath,  her voice cracking as she continues.

“When I command, needle, nag, pull, at you to do what I want because you are mine, because you belong to me, you must ask, _am I your possessions as the others were his possessions_?”

Ellana’s throat clicks, and her arms squeeze tight against her arms, slowly curling in on herself, voice rough and ragged - raw, as her face turns white, _gray_ -

“And finally, _finally_ , when I am at my worst, when you are at the point where you even consider that someone is about to be harmed in any way, ask me - _Who’s face speaks? Fear or deceit_?”

Ellana’s knees hit the ground and she gasps for air, shivering gasps and Bull moves forward, kneeling in front of her and putting his hands on her. She hasn’t given permission, he knows.

But he turns her face to look at him, her pupils blown, shaking in true fucking _panic_.

“And then?” He asks. She isn’t finished.

“And then you run,” Ellana finally answers after a few choked clicks of her voice, “I will be frozen, worse than I am now, and you will take whoever is with you and _run_.”

“And _then_?” Bull presses.

“And then,” She croaks, “You hope you’re out of range.”


	18. Chapter 18

“You have such beautiful hair, Dalish,” Ellana says as she braids the woman’s hair. “It’s so very fine. You know - when Abelas reported back to confirm your heritage, there was a note from Mythal. She remembered one of your ancestors. The mother of your grand father’s wife’s aunt. Beautiful hair. Steady hands.”

“Truly?” Dalish asks, eyes wide when they meet Ellana’s in the mirror.

“Yes,” Ellana says, “Perhaps it was the same as yours. This is how it would have looked, no?”

“Mythal’s knot,” Dalish confirms, fascinated as she watches Ellana’s hands braid and twist and part.

“Yes,” Ellana hums, “Mythal’s knot.”

Dalish, Ellana thinks, is only older than her by a few decades. The math is uncertain, but Ellana thinks they would be like sisters. They could have been like sisters.

It would be nice, Ellana muses.

“Did your ancestors ever tell you stories about the hunts in Mythal’s realms?” Ellana asks, pulling Dalish’s hair into a thick rope in her hands, fingers curling around the base of it as she reaches for the fine pearl inlaid comb.

“No, lady,” Dalish answers, still a little skittish, but mostly relaxed. Not like she was when she first arrived here, eyes looking at Ellana like she was looking at a living and breathing statue of diamonds, like Ellana was already a god, a violent and dangerous god. Dalish has mostly gotten over that mute awe. Mostly.  “My clan was not in the hunter or trapper field.”

“No? Does your clan remember what ways they were devoted to, under Mythal?”

Ellana has been waiting for her to relax, to let herself loose. It’s hard to get someone to talk to you if they watch every single word they say like it might be their last.

Dalish’s brow furrows as she tries to remember something that is beyond her, “Minor servants, I think - I am not sure, lady.”

“Hm. I think I am familiar - shall we have a history lesson, then?”

Ellana presses the point of the fine comb, sharp and thin, against Dalish’s throat, hands steady as she pulls Dalish’s head back to look straight into the mirror. Ellana has been waiting for this chance.

“I found the prayer stitches embroidered onto the inside of your rune bag, Dalish,” Ellana says, fingers tight in Dalish’s hair as she looks into Dalish’s widening eyes. “I wasn’t sure at first, you know. Abelas and the others knew you on sight. They remember. They were alive then - and the memory of a sentinel goes back thousands of thousands of lifetimes, Dalish. Andruil’s own most likely knew you as well. Did you know that, Dalish? Your clan is infamous among us. Do they even remember? Or were have they quickened that much that they have already lost the original root of the poison?”

Ellana’s voice lowers.

“I wasn’t certain though. I wanted to _confirm_ it. I wanted to be certain of what I had in my hands. So I had Abelas check. The Wolf wanted to deal with you himself, but I claimed you as mine. I wanted to be the one to deal with it. _I wanted to look at you as I did it. I_ wanted to see if you would tell me. I waited. Your ancestor, the mother of your grand father’s wife’s aunt. That is the ancestor I was referring to. That was a joke, Dalish. Your grandmother had no hair - Mythal took it from her. A token of service. Your ancestor had steady hands, Dalish, because your clan was the reason for Mythal’s second age.”

Dalish’s skin is very pale, ghostly, her breathing quick, quickening like the blood in her veins. Ellana’s hands remain steady even as she looks into the face of a descendant of one of the most loathed and reviled clans in recent history. Even as she looks into the face of the woman who was almost her sister-kin.

“Do you understand what I mean when I say second age?”

“No, lady,” Dalish whispers.

“Another question, then,” Ellana says, “Do you know why your clan continues to wear Mythal’s marks even though you have been released from service?”

Dalish is silent. Ellana smiles.

“We both know what it means to be released from service.” Ellana moves the comb handle to touch one of the lines along the front of Dalish’s throat. “To have your marks removed means that you are no longer wanted, no longer necessary. You are free game. Why would Mythal release you and yet keep your clan marked, Dalish? Do you know?”

Dalish’s lips part. Ellana clicks her tongue sharply.

“No, Dalish. We both know that you know. That was not a question I meant for you to lie to me about. This is not where you hang yourself. I saw your embroidery. Your prayer stitches. They look proper - the right stitches to Sylaise and Mythal and Elgar’nan. I will not be upset with you for praying to them. I am not upset with you for praying to others. But those aren’t the _real_ stitches, Dalish. Those are _the hidden marks_. I see the true god woven into them.”

Ellana brings her mouth close to Dalish’s ear, looking into Dalish’s reflected eyes.

“Your ancestors would never wear Mythal’s knot. This is the Raven’s claw. Similar enough to the Mythal’s knot - the Raven’s styles always sought to copy others. But inverted, always inverted. That’s why you recognized it. Your clan was released by Mythal because she had no patience for you in her second age, and your duty was done. The Raven had no reason to protect you, then. Your clan was disposable. You should have been made markless, nameless. But you _weren’t_.”

Ellana works one of her fingers, her small finger, loose from Dalish’s hair and presses the tip of it to Dalish’s skin.

“Your marks are a brand to all who remember, your clan’s curse is to carry the burden of responsibility for as long as they live - forever beholden to the Mother, forever cast out in shame, to quicken, to die, to be forgotten, to forget everything but your shame. She wants you to suffer, she wants your line to go down slowly, so that we may all watch you die out. A lizard’s tail that shrivels under hot sun. You use the hidden marks instead of standard or fair.” Ellana uses her pinky to trace the lines she knows by heart on the back of Dalish’s neck, and her suspicions are confirmed when Dalish’s mouth parts and a cracking whimper slides through her slack jaws. “Tell me - and _this_ is where you get to hang - _Who is your god?_ ”

Ellana digs the comb handle into Dalish’s throat before she can answer.

“Do not say the Wolf, do not say _me_. That non-answer will not save you. _Who is your god_?”

“Who,” Dalish replies, looking Ellana in the eye, voice only shaking like a leaf in a breeze rather than a twister, “Is _yours_? _Lavellan?_ ”

Her finger turns into a claw and she digs it deep into the flesh of Dalish’s neck, warm blood and flesh parting easily for her as Dalish cries out.

Ellana continues to look into the mirror, comb handle steady.

“Why do you know that name?” Ellana whispers.

“The way you speak,” Dalish says, “You aren’t using standard. Sometimes - sometimes you use Raven words, touches of Bear. My clan mostly taught standard, but we had those words, too. I recognized it from the elders. Those aren’t the words used by the washers or the hunters or the cooks. Those are the words used by the hidden. I know that much - I wasn’t born here. I swear it. But I learned parts of it. You’re right. We haven’t forgotten. The shame is still carried with us. The history. I don’t know the fair ways, I only know the hidden ones. Those are the only ones I know how to use. I’ve been learning with the rest of them, lady. I promise you, I’ve been changing what I can. I’m doing my best to leave the hidden ways -”

“I don’t care,” Ellana says pulling her claw out from Dalish’s skin, healing it with half a thought. Dalish shivers, “I don’t care if you continue to use the hidden ways or not - you aren’t using them properly, they lack power, and _he_ wouldn’t care anyway. He has no need of you or your clan. Your purpose is done. You are Mythal’s now, and even she doesn’t care for you or your clan’s fate. _How do you know that name_?’

Dalish swallows, “I guessed.”

Ellana digs the handle deeper into Dalish’s throat, close to breaking skin.

“There are only a few other clans the Raven liked to use that my elders remembered the names of, thought to pass down. I would have gone through the entire list if I had to.”

Ellana grudgingly approves.

Dalish is working with almost third generation knowledge. Ellana isn’t certain she’d be able to survive and gamble on such information.

“You will never use that name again,” Ellana says, “That is not a command. That is a truth. Should that name ever pass your, or any one else from Andruil’s trade’s lips without my express consent - you will die.”

Ellana weaves the magic of promise around them and Dalish closes her eyes and whispers _yes_.

The magic settles around them, weaving around their hearts, their fine veins, the channels of their souls.

Ellana straightens up, not loosening her hold on the comb. Dalish shudders a moan.

“Answer me this, Dalish, do you follow in those ways because of choice or because they are all that is remembered by your quickening blood?”

“They are all we know, lady,” Dalish answers, “I swear it. You can have your hands look. It is all we know. I open my mind to you freely if you need to see. If we knew the fair or standard, if we _knew_ we would change it. We would cast it aside forever.”

Dalish’s eyes are pleading. Her hair is fine in Ellana’s fist.

“I cannot take you out of these walls, I will not risk taking you outside of these chambers until I know, until you tell me - and I trust you to be honest on this, I trust you to tell me the truth. This one time. - _who is your god_?” Ellana whispers.

“The one who lets me and mine live,” Dalish answers.

That is an answer. It is an answer Ellana will take, even.

Ellana’s fingers ease out of Dalish’s hair, and she tosses the comb onto the table. Ellana’s hands are quick to undo the braids, the knots, the patterns that will always be there in her bones, will always be in her flesh.

Dalish’s eyes watch her, questions, fear, confusion, relief.

“The Iron Bull doesn’t know,” Ellana says, quiet.

“Will you tell him?” There is more fear in Dalish’s voice in that one question than in everything else she’s said. It says so many things.

Ellana pauses as she uses a kerchief to wipe blood from the nape of Dalish’s neck.

“He is a good man,” Ellana says.

“Yes,” Dalish breathes, hands fists in her lap, eyes intent on Ellana’s face in the mirror.

“He is a broken man,” Ellana continues.

“Yes,” Dalish says.

Ellana meets Dalish’s eyes, hands resting on her shoulders. Ellana leans forward so that their faces are level in the mirror. Dalish trembles under her hands, but her face is very brave. Very hopeful.

“He will never know about this,” Ellana says, weaving the magic of a second promise over them even as Dalish’s eyes widen, “I swear to you. Neither you nor I shall tell him of this, of any of this, unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”

Dalish nods, hands reaching up to squeeze Ellana’s as the magic of a pact settles around them.

Dalish does not say thank you.

Ellana does not do this for her.

“He is a good and broken man,” Ellana repeats.

“Yes,” Dalish says, one more time.

Ellana will not take his trust of his Chargers from him. She is not yet that cruel.

 _He is a good man_.


	19. Chapter 19

Dalish’s mind is still reeling from this revelation -

 _Ellana, First Among Wolves, Wolf Ascendant_ _was a Raven_.

Her hands shake as she practices the braid that Ellana calmly coached her through, heavy and strange on her own head. Foreign and oddly beautiful in the wild and seemingly impossible way it tangles at the back of her head, - “You have no need for Mythal’s Knot, or Raven’s Claw, or any of the others. Forget them. They are beyond your reach. This is the Wolf’s Cycle. Learn it. Memorize it like your own heart. I trust that you clan has not yet not forgotten the _vir asha.”_

No, the women of Dalish’ clan had not yet lost the _vir asha_.

“I have a gift for you,” Ellana says, voice still low - rough and ragged and raw in ways that rattle Dalish to the core. It is not the way of Gods to be so - _understandable_. So - _present_. “Or rather - a weapon that I will ask you to use in the - most likely - near future.”

“You trust me with a weapon, lady?” Dalish replies, hands unsteady as she removes the strands of leather and silk and pieces of bead and bone from Ellana’s thick hair.

“I trust you with a weapon, Dalish, because the Iron Bull is a good man, and I have trusted him with an equally powerful weapon,” Ellana replies, “And I trust you with a similar weapon to the one I have given him because you, too, know that he is a good man.”

Ellana’s eyes meet hers in the mirror, a strange reversal of what happened only a half hour or so before.

“And because he is a good man, Dalish, he will not use this weapon. Even at the cost of his own life. So I trust you to do it for me, for him.”

Dalish swallows, mouth dry, hands numb with revelation.

“What is this weapon, exactly, lady?”

“For you to understand this weapon, I must provide you with context for it so that you may use it effectively. This, I did not give to him. He would not understand the depth of it. The meaning. Not as you would.” Ellana’s fingers splay over the wood table of the dressing room Dalish and Skinner share, long and pale and tapered. Elegant in all the ways the gods are meant to be.

 _She was a Raven_.

“I was not sure of this, either,” Ellana continues, eyes drifting to the window and the sounds of water and wind and the occasional bird. “But the Iron Bull is your new master, isn’t he? I thought it might be Skinner - but she is _lethallin_ , no?”

“No,” Dalish’s heart slams into her throat, fear - _she cannot bring this shame onto Skinner, too, she must never bring her shame onto Skinner -_ , “No - she isn’t. We aren’t - “

Ellana’s eyes snap to her and her hand snakes up, seizing Dalish’s wrist in a vice grip, frozen and steel.

“Do not deny it. She is your _lethallin_. You must never be ashamed of your _lethallin_. At the end of everything they are all you will have - and you must know exactly who they are and claim them as your own lest they be taken from you. Protect them with everything you have, everything you are. _Never be ashamed_.”

Dalish’s hands must be pulling at Ellana’s hair by the roots with her fear, but Ellana’s face is hard as she demands this of her.

“I can’t claim her,” Dalish whispers.

“Why?” Ellana demands, something bolder than any wolf or raven.

“My clan - “

“Fuck your clan,” Ellana snaps. “You claim her - and the Iron Bull and Rocky and Krem and Grim and Stitches and all the rest - as _yours_. I know you would. You’d do it in a heart beat. Only a fool wouldn’t. Dalish, you are no fool. Out matched, yes, out classed, yes, drastically in over your head and blind to the exact situation you have found yourself in, yes. But you are _no fool_. I would never have risked taking you if you were one. Claim Skinner as your blood. Claim them all as your blood.”

The woman’s face is skeletal - devoid, somehow - despite the warm and perfect golden light that drifts in through the window.

“What happened to them?” Dalish asks, the darkness somehow pouring out of Ellana’s eyes, making them bigger, hollower, emptier than physically possible. “Where are they?”

“They are no longer Ravens,” Ellana whispers through pale lips, her hand slowly releasing Dalish’s, “They are Arrows, now.”

Dalish feels something at the bottom of her stomach empty out.

“What?”

“They are _Arrows_ , now,” Ellana repeats, willing Dalish to understand something that isn’t actually possible. Dalish just stares into the woman’s hollow eyes.

“They would never be traded to the Crafter,” Dalish whispers. “ _He would never trade his favorites to Crafter_.”

Ellana slowly shakes her head, eyes locked onto Dalish’s. “They were not traded, Dalish. You know how the Raven is about his things. When the Sun demanded that the rest of the pantheon give their new _brother_ gifts of welcome, the Raven was forced to give a gift. He gave one of the highest gifts anyone could give. But he would not take a loss for his own.”

Dalish yanks her hands out of Ellana’s hair, lest she do something suicidal - like set it on fire. Or rip it out entirely.

Ellana’s eyes continue to bore into hers in the mirror. From outside a bird caws - loud and dissonant in comparison to the songbirds, the rushing water, the vague sound of chimes.

“Dalish,” Ellana whispers, “Even among the clans exiled to the quickening, this practice is known. Do you not do this every time you wish for a miracle? When you need a plague to pass, or to escape slavers or hunters? What do your clans do when they are backed into a corner and are screaming for the favor of the gods?”

Dalish’s breath is ice in her own throat. It is - _it is impossible_.

“Say it with me,” Ellana’s lips move softly, and the word is coaxed out of Dalish’s mouth as Ellana’s lips shape the word without sound.

Hecatomb.

“It is forbidden,” Dalish’ voice is too loud, even though it is slipped through her teeth, in the echoing silence after that single word. “ _It is forbidden_.”

Ellana shakes her head, slowly turning in her seat to look up at Dalish directly. Dalish’s ears fill with the rushing of heavy wings.

“On elves, yes,” Ellana says. “But not on _animals_. _One hundred Ravens_.”

Dalish turns in time to be sick over a bright turquoise and black rug. Ellana’s hand is firm as she rubs her hand over Dalish’s back.

“The Crafter received his gift,” Ellana says, voice a rattling sort of soft, hollow, “One hundred Ravens. Dead, yes, but there is no one who would deny what a _beautiful gift_ he was given.”

Dalish retches, throat and eyes stinging at the horror; the _putrid perversity of it_.

A raven chatters from somewhere close by, sharp and jarring, cutting through all the other sounds of Dalish’s heart in her ears, her magic under her skin, her own hitched breathing as her chest squeezes tighter and tighter with revelation.

She looks up and _understands_. She looks up and into Ellana’s eyes and _understands_. In this moment, for the first time - Dalish looks at Ellana and the woman is _mortal_. For the first time since they met, despite all the exchanges they have had, all the proof that has been laid before her, all the revelations brought to Dalish’s feet, it is _this_ that shakes the divine out of her. The word echoes in Dalish’s head, _hecatomb_. Hecatomb. _Hecatomb._

“Why are you telling me this?” Dalish croaks out.

“Because the Iron Bull is your guide,” Ellana says, “Because you were made to need a guide, and until you unlearn that, this works in my favor because you will do anything to serve him.”

“You were also made to need a guide,” Dalish rasps through her stinging throat, her foul and bitter tasting mouth.

Ellana’s teeth flash, and it is hard to imagine that this woman could ever have been a Raven when everything about her screams Wolf _._

 _“_ Ah, but I have been breaking myself of that particular role for quite a few centuries. I am leagues ahead of you in that, Dalish.”

Ellana stands up and walks to the stand with the pitcher and shallow bowl, taking a cleansing cloth and dipping it in the water.

“I am telling you this, Dalish, because there will come a time in the near future when I am a danger to your guide, the Iron Bull. And I have given him the weapons he needs to protect himself and others from me.” Ellana turns walking back to her and taking Dalish’s face into her hands, gently wiping sick from Dalish’s mouth and chin. “But he will not use them, or when he does it will be too late. When that time comes, _you_ must make sure to do what he cannot. You must stop me.”

Ellana throws the cleansing cloth onto the table and raises a hand towards the window, crooking her finger.

A single raven flies in, weight landing on Ellana’s outstretched arm. Ellana brings her arm closer to herself as the bird hops up her shoulder and settles close to her head.

“Ask me why the Raven gave the Crafter the hecatomb.”

Dalish shakes her head, already sick. Already afraid.

The Wolf does not give this kind of information. The Wolf does not give. The Wolf exchanges, trades.

It is the way of the others in the pantheon to give and take and withhold and promise and forget.

The Wolf does not forget. All ledgers are balanced.

Dalish’s legs are weak as she sinks to the floor, tired and anxious and just _sick_. Ellana kneels in front of her, silently demanding for Dalish to raise her head.

When she does both Wolf and Raven are looking straight into her. Ellana’s unbound hair is a thick curtain that blocks out light and makes the hollows of her eyes even darker, even more deathly.

“Ask me,” Ellana repeats softly.

“Why?” Dalish finally manages to choke out.

“Because of me,” Ellana answers. “Because I am selfish. Because I am cruel. Because I am hungry and ambitious. Because I am always afraid. Because I am a petty, shallow, vindictive, spiteful, _bitch_ of a coward. I caused everyone who ever shared my name to be wiped out in one single _moment_. Because I _rebelled_. My punishment for that one action is not yet over, Dalish. _It is still on going_.”

“What does this have to do with _him_?” Dalish asks.

“The weapon I am about to give you is a name,” Ellana says, “Names have power. It is not my own name that has power over me, but it is the name of one other. The one person I have ever claimed as _lethallin_ \- and then, too late. I have given him the path to this name indirectly, in ways that would touch upon the open sore of a bleeding, infected memory that name has left within me. But you will have the killing blow. You have the touch of a Raven in you, I know that you are capable of using it where he will not. When the time comes that I am lost beyond words, to rage and grief and fear and all the things that have taken everything from me, and I turn to violence and destruction, _use this name_. The name of my ongoing punishment.”

Dalish closes her eyes as Ellana leans forward and her lips graze Dalish’s cheek as she whispers, softly, quietly, brokenly, into her ear -

 _The First of the Wolves was a Raven_ , Dalish thinks as the name echoes into her ear, _the Wolf Ascendant was a slave_.

Ellana leans back, settling on her heels.

She does not ask Dalish to repeat it back to her. Dalish does not offer.

“What happened to you?” Dalish asks, instead.

Ellana stands up, offering Dalish her hand. Dalish takes it, soaks in the steady beat of mana through Ellana’s bandaged palm.

The bird on her shoulder makes a soft clicking.

Ellana shakes her head and takes her seat again, the bird hopping onto the table and sending the comb and cloth and various hair ornaments scattering. Ellana runs her finger over the bird’s breast, eyes down cast.

“Why do you care so much?” Dalish asks instead as she runs her fingers through Ellana’s dark hair, carefully sorting out tangles in the black river. “He’s just a Qunari. I’m just a quickened elf born from an exiled clan. Why do you care about us surviving so much? You’ve - you’ve already done the impossible. Why did you accept?”

“I had no choice,” Ellana replies.

“You could have left us to rot, to die.” Dalish points out, “We would be dead in a season for you.”

“Because I am not a good person Dalish, I don’t think anyone who was ever Raven could be,” Ellana answers closing her eyes, “But I _want_ to be.”


	20. Chapter 20

Skinner returns to the rooms she and Dalish have been sharing, early - she was meant to be practicing riding on one of Ellana’s numerous stags, but she got tired of watching Rocky and Varric try to fast talk their way out of looking idiotic.

She doesn’t realize that there’s anyone else in their quarters until she gets closer to the dressing room towards the back and hears a soft murmur of voices. Dalish and Ellana.

Skinner silences her footsteps, soft like cat’s feet - soft enough to survive the broken glass of Orlais, of the alienages, the slums, the tenements -, and slides close to the open archway, carefully looking in.

The two women sit on the floor, heads bowed together, speaking in soft voices. Their backs are turned to her, and both of them have their hair twisted up into perplexing looking knots. It is an almost familiar sight on Ellana - who, on some of her best days, looks like something has turned her hair into its new lair, and on her worst looks like her hair has grown a mind of its own and is trying to show how blood thirsty hair can really be.

But on Dalish -

Skinner is used to Dalish with one or two braids in her light hair, the occasional knot or twist to keep it out of her face when she’s tending wounded. She’s used to Dalish’s hair being free. Unbound. Flowing. Like Skinner’s.

Seeing it like this -

Skinner is abruptly reminded of how far apart they are.

Dalish may have been born in the world of the shemlen, but she isn’t that far off from - from _this_. Her clan remembers. Her clan still has the strong vestiges of _this_ in their blood.

Skinner doens't have a clan. Whatever clan she came from has been long lost, forsaken, diluted, to time and history. Skinner doesn’t even know the stories, their name. She just knows what broken fragments the others like her have put together under the human’s watch.

Dalish and Skinner _look_ the same age, and Ellana looks only a handful of years younger than the both of them, but the truth is different.

Dalish’s clan members still live to well over a hundred. Chances are that Dalish will still be alive and fighting, doing everything that they both love to do when Skinner is an old crone. If Skinner even makes it that long.

And Ellana -

Ellana will be here, perfect and golden in this dream of a temple, long after both their names are dust trails.

How far back do the memories of gods go?

Skinner leaves, retreating to the far side of the room and pulling out her knives to sharpen, polish, check over. She hasn’t had a chance to use them for anything more than sparring, but it never hurts to know.

And with luck, on this little _hunting_ trip, Skinner will get a chance to test it on something that will actually bleed if she cuts it.

Skinner loses herself in the art of knives - Dalish once told her that perhaps her clan belonged to Andruil, or even Sylaise, for how well Skinner holds a knife.

Skinner said nothing. Skinner believes in the gods, she even prays to them and means it every once in a long while.

But Skinner owes nothing of the callouses on her hands, the fading and not-fading scars on her fingers and arms, the hours and sweat that have made indentations into the grips of her knives, to the gods. She owes them nothing of her blades.

Skinner has sworn her blades as part of her contract with the Bull’s Chargers to this would-be-god, but Skinner’s blades _remain hers_.

The hours and days of Skinner’s life are not credited to anyone.

She allows herself to sink, immerse, herself in her blades. She checks their health with her hands, their voices with the whetstone. _How are you? Are you well fed? Rested?_ How do they gleam? How do they feel? Do they return to her hands, their sheathes, pliantly? Do they hesitate? How do they balance on her fingers? Her knuckles? How smooth does the light play, or not play, on their blades? How does it flow over their edges? And the shadows? How sharp? How soft? What angles?

For some time it is her, Skinner, and her blades, the skinners, and it is a silent communion that has always been just theirs. No one can take this from her - shem, elf, god, mortal, _whatever_.

She’s drawn out of it by the sound of voices, louder and closer.

Skinner glances up from her work, her leather brace unfurled on the floor in front of her, solid stone at her back, as Dalish and Ellana emerge from the dressing room.

Their arms are linked and they walk close together, Ellana carries one of the rugs from the dressing room - blue and black - rolled under her other arm. There is a raven on Dalish’s shoulder.

Skinner is on her feet, eyes fixed on Dalish.

Her face -

“It’s alright,” Dalish says, turning to kiss Ellana’s cheek. Ellana returns the gesture, something passing between their eyes. Dalish’s eyes land on Skinner as Ellana untangles their arm and leaves. “Skinner, it’s - it’s fine. Leave it.”

Skinner cuts across the room, knives sliding back into place along their sheathes, and stops short of entering Dalish’s space.

Ever since they arrived here Dalish has been _afraid_. She has been panicked, spooked. It has eased somewhat in the months since they were first taken in. But Dalish has from the very first held some sort of shadow underneath her skin.

The new shadow under Dalish’s mouth and eyes is not the same sort of beast.

“What happened?” Skinner asks, “What did she say to you?”

Dalish is no longer afraid - checking over her shoulder and glancing at every moving shadow. She is no longer ginger with every touch of her heel to the ground and slightly too loud, too deep breath.

Dalish, and the shadows that have collected underneath her skin, is _aware_.

“A lot of things,” Dalish answers slowly, voice rough, raw. “Skinner - I -.”

Skinner holds out her hand, Dalish takes it immediately, squeezing and closing her eyes.

“I have made a bargain with the Wolf,” Dalish says.

Skinner’s stomach churns, they have all made a bargain with the Wolf.

“And?”

Dalish shakes her head, opening her eyes. She swallows and takes in a breath.

“I may have given something very stupid,” Dalish says. “And I think I may have dug myself into deeper trouble than I could have ever imagined.”

“Then nothing new,” Skinner raises an eyebrow.

“No,” Dalish admits, “Nothing new.”

“My knives remain yours,” Skinner says. “For whatever stupid you dug yourself into. I’ll cut you out.”

Dalish’s smile is a flash through shadows.

“Thank you, Skinner. I just hope it won’t come to that.”


	21. Chapter 21

There are no eluvians that lead to the little wolf’s aviary - too many security risks for the little wolf to manage, too many openings for her comfort. It is an intensely private place, an incredibly disturbing place.

It would, perhaps, be less disturbing if it had more variety.

Neria trudges through thick shrubs, having to climb trees at some places and work her way over branches instead of traversing on the forest floor. It’s always something of a long trip, too many possible eyes on the back of her neck to be comfortable, but that’s the price Neria pays for visiting the little wolf in her most sacred of places uninvited.

She finally arrives - suddenly, and without warning - at a frosted glass wall. Neria sincerely hopes that this is the door and she doesn’t have to feel her way around the damn thing to find it.

She places her palm on the glass and sends a tentative pulse of mana through the glass. It is silent and unresponsive - Neria internally curses and tries to figure out which way she should go and her odds of finding the door before the evening bell.

But the glass answers just as Neria is about to start working her way west, the glass and thin metal unlocking and shifting away to open into the aviary.

Neria passes, shivers as the feeling of eyes intensifies. She forces herself to blot out the sound of wings, of cawing.

Ellana sits in the cradle of low growing branches, comfortably sprawled in the arms of a tree. Ellana has a raven in her lap, and the vague flicker of her pet spirit is a long suggestion of a body next to her.

“Neria,” Ellana says as she draws closer, “Two visits in as many moons? Careful, you’ll start to make people think you like me as a person. What prompts this visit to my bower?”

“I like you enough, little wolf,” Neria says, “I like your _pets_ less.”

Ellana hums and the chatter of the ravens around them rises and falls, a black and grating tide of sound.

“You reveal to much to the shemlen,” Neria says, “You’re making too many vulnerabilities. I don’t have the resources to spare to guard you against yourself.”

“I reveal what I need to them,” Ellana raises an eyebrow, “They’re my household. _Mine,_ not yours, Neria. How I manage them is my perogative.”

“You give them a weapon against you, one they don’t know how to use properly. One they cannot be trusted with, Wolf Ascendant. You _cannot_ be actually trust them with this.”

“It is _my_ poisoned knife, Surana,” Ellana’s eyes are eerily reminiscent of her elder’s. “It is up to _me_ who I trust with it. It is not _your_ secret to determine who and who should wield it. And if there is _anyone_ who I don’t trust with that knife it has _always_ been you. I _never_ gave you that knife and you hold it under my nose with _impunity_.”

“I am the Wolf’s blade,” Neria plants her feet, ignores the growing focus of the ravens as they move along their roosts, the branches, the perches and nests to watch her. Only her. “I _took_ it.”

“Yes,” Ellana’s eyes slit, “You did _take_ it.”

“ _Theif_ ,” a raven close to Neria’s side rasps, “ _theif, theif, theif_.”

Neria’s hand snakes out at the raven that speaks and just as quick, Ellana’s mana coils around Neria’s spine, electric and bright white.

“Please. As if you care - it’s a bird. A _bird_. You know better. You can’t honestly _love all of them_ ,” Neria says as her fist closes, just shy of the raven who hasn’t even moved. So _confident_ in his mistress’ love. “They aren’t - “

“His name isn’t yours to use, Surana,” Ellana’s voice is a sweet whisper, “Don’t test me in my place of power. And yes, Neria. I _do_ love them all.”

“You know they aren’t _him_ ,” Neria spits as Ellana’s mana slowly unspools from Neria’s bones, releasing her with a faint razor _whisper_ along the edges of Neria’s skin. “Tell me one of them is him. Tell me that one of them even comes close to make you _feel_ again. That one of them makes you feel even close to _whole_. You know none of them are. Not a single one of these damn birds is anything close. They are all _lies_.”

“What do you know of how I should feel? Of how I am when I am whole? It doesn’t _matter_ what they make me feel.  And for all that you care they could make me feel murderous. They are all I have,” a raven sweeps down into Ellana’s lap, rolling around and demanding her attention. Ellana runs her hand over its breast, eyes still fixed on Neria as another raven teases at her hair. “I don’t _care_.”

“You swallow poison so greedily,” Neria’s hand opens and closes at her side.

“And you’re just upset because I’m finally playing your game,” Ellana laughs. “All these years you’ve hounded me, Surana. Sometimes I’m too good for you, too nice, too passive, too quiet, too submissive. And other times I’m too loud, too rebellious, too bold, too rough. We both know you’ll never be happy with me. Now - Now I’m finally playing the game and you’re angry because the Wolf has given me pieces to play on even footing as you and there isn’t a single thing you can do about that. I’m playing the game we were both taught, Surana. You can’t fault me because my play style is different from yours.”

Ellana tilts her head.

“I don’t even blame you. It’s the way you were formed.”

Neria narrows her eyes. Ellana just smiles back, sweet as anything.

“But you wouldn’t have come here just to tell me about how upset you are that you aren't the one holding the knife to my back. What’s your _official_ reason for coming all the way here?”

Neria sighs, closes her eyes and forces her irritation down.

“Which Mahariel are you taking?”

“Theron,” Ellana answers and Neria grinds her teeth. Ellana laughs, “You wanted me to say Lyna, I know.”

“Is that why you said Theron?”

“Of course not, Neria, I’m not that petty,” Ellana waves her hand, dislodging the bird on her shoulder who squawks before flying off to roost elsewhere. The one in her lap whistles for her attention again. “I’m bringing Theron because he makes me laugh.”

Before Neria can protest, the raven in Ellana’s lap twists itself into a man - darting up to give Ellana a quick peck on the lips before lying back across her lap.

“I always knew I was your favorite, lady, it’s just so good to hear it out loud. Do you think I could get that in writing? Frame it?”

Ellana’s eyes are wide in surprise before she bursts out laughing.

Neria sends a quick prayer for patience, a few moments later she feels a vague touch of laughter.

Both the Wolf and his pup are out to kill her, she swears.

“ _Theron_ ,” Neria fights to keep her voice level, “What are you doing?”

Theron blinks at her, arms crossed behind his head.

“Lying down?”

“You aren’t dressed.”

Theron looks surprised, looking down at himself and then looking back up at her, “Don’t frighten me like that, Surana. You almost made me think I came before the First Among Wolves in less than proper dress,” Theron winks at Ellana who bursts out into more laughter, “Though I’d happily do that in slightly more private company if she ever suggested it.”

“In your dreams, Theron,” Ellana sighs, curling a hand into his hair.

“Both our losses, really,” Theron mourns.

“ _You’re supposed to be on patrol_ ,” Neria says, “Why are you not in standard dress?”

“Oh was that supposed to be today? Must have slipped my mind,” Theron replies. “Back to how I’m the First Among Wolves’ favorite?”

“Bring Lyna,” Neria says, eyes rising back to Ellana’s, “She’s all around better at her job than this one is.”

Theron squawks in indignation. Both of them ignore him.

“I like Theron,” Ellana replies. “And Lyna is too _quiet_ for what I need.”

“And for what I am assigned to do, I need you to bring someone better at magic.”

“Why?” Ellana tilts her head, “Theron is plenty good at magic. And so am _I_. Why would I need someone else good at magic, Neria? Is there a reason why _my_ magic wouldn’t be good enough for whatever scenario you have imagined?”

Neria doesn’t dignify that with an answer, just continues staring straight back into the little wolf’s eyes.

But the little wolf, for all that she is the same, _is not_ the Wolf.

(Not yet.)

Ellana continues to smile.

“You won’t last,” Neria finally says, “You wouldn’t be able to protect the Tevinter _and_ yourself _and_ your pet spirit _and_ the rest of your household.”

“Is there a reason why I would need to protect them in the heart of the Wolf’s territory?” Theron sits up and jumps down from the tree, leaning against its trunk as he watches their exchange, face blank. Theron was Neria’s chief competitor for this position for a reason. She has no doubt that Theron already understands the full situation ahead of the rest of the sentinels.

“You know why,” Neria replies. “Let us refuse.”

“No.”

“Take Lyna.”

“No.”

“ _Ellana - “_

“Because I can,” Ellana cuts Neria off before she can say anything. “I do this because I can, Neria. I do this because there are many things I cannot do, but this I can. I do this because within two moon cycles I will not be given a choice, not really, so I’m making every choice I can now. Because within two moon cycles I will not be allowed to say _no, so I’m saying no now_. It makes your job harder, yes, but since when has anyone made your job easy? Name one time my hahren has made a smooth path for you to follow. Name one.”

Neria closes her eyes, “ _Fine_.”

She swallows and softly exhales, opening her eyes to meet Ellana’s eyes again.

“I don’t hate you, Ellana. I do want you to live. I want you to be _happy_ , even.”

“I know,” Ellana concedes after a very long, very loud and still moment. “You just want those things secondary to what you can get out of me, to what I can do for the Wolf. I know. I understand. But it won’t stop me from doing everything I can to put myself first.”


	22. Chapter 22

“I wanted to talk to you today about possession,” Ellana says, folding her hands together in her lap, serene and still in the strange sort of flowing vortex of sound and light and sensation that is her temple, “Or that which the shemlen have come to understand as possession.”

“This is about our little expedition, isn’t it? This isn’t some sort of philosophical or moment of revelation,” Dorian says. He can’t sit like she does - all calmly balanced and perfectly folded like some sort of half open flower. Dorian only looks that sort of elegant in a proper chair. Or at the very least, a low stool. He makes do with grass. He’s almost envious of her, really. Almost.

How _could_ he ever truly be jealous of someone who _hasn’t_ had the wonderful joy of sitting through a debate at the Magisterium over toffees?

“Yes,” Ellana replies, “Though there’s no reason why it can’t be the latter two as well, to - as you say - make the medicine go down.”

Dorian’s lip quirks up, “Ah, I _knew_ you elves liked some of our literature after all. And the slaves you have tutoring us keep going on about proper format and such.”

Ellana blinks, flower freezing, “Dorian, I don’t have slaves. The Wolf does not keep slaves.”

“Pardon, _servants_ , whatever you wish to call them,” Dorian raises an eyebrow, “As I’m told, elves with marks are slaves, owned.”

“It depends on the mark,” Ellana says, voice turning that special sort of brittle Dorian has come to associate with danger. “Dorian, they aren’t slaves. And slaves aren’t the same as servants - _there are no slaves in the Wolf’s domain_. You must never say that.”

“Even I, lowly altus of the Tevinter Empire, know that elves keep slaves,” Dorian says, “You don’t need to pretend you don’t.”

Ellana breathes out softly, “Dorian. I am not pretending that I don’t have slaves, I’m telling you the truth. There aren’t any. Everyone you have seen - everyone you will speak to - they are all free men and women. If they bear marks it is because they do not wish to part with them. You’ve come to recognize the marks by now?”

“Yes, most of them. I don’t recognize the ones on Neria and the rest of her lot,” Dorian narrows his eyes, “I had thought they were the Wolf’s writing.”

“No,” Ellana shakes her head, “Not in the way you think. They are _synonymous_ with the Wolf, yes, but the Wolf’s own marks have been banned, erased from use and many memories, ages and ages ago. Before I was born, even. The Wolf has not kept slaves, or accepted them, in a very long time. The marks Neria and many of the other Sentinels wear, and many of the others in the Wolf’s domain, are not that of slaves or even former slaves. They are the marks of _outlaws_ , rebels, _undesireables_ who before finding sanctuary and protection at the Wolf’s hearth, were marked for termination, erasure, or even reconstruction.”

Dorian’s stomach clenches at that last word and Ellana’s eyes tell him she understands. That she sees.

Sometimes he wants to ask her how much she knows, how far back her knowledge of him is - he doesn’t even care how she knows. He just wants to know _what_.

He wonders what she thinks of the parts that she does know.

“For the most part, the inhabitants of the Wolf’s land are these people, those who the other gods mostly don’t care enough to fight for. They were cast out - deemed unfit for service - and they do not care if the Wolf takes their, as they would say, _spares_.”

“For the most part.”

“Yes,” Ellana’s voice is soft and eyes warn him not to press further, “For the most part.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Dorian says, and then pauses. “You aren’t going to go off on me about how you think slavery is terrible and such, are you?”

Ellana shakes her head, “I have no doubt that it is an argument you have had hundreds of thousands of times over with many others since you left Tevinter. And I do not wish to argue with someone who does not wish to consider persuasion. You ask because you want to bait me, to see what a would-be-god rationalizes and thinks. I will only ask you two things, two things which you do not have to answer out loud but just consider in your heart.”

“I’m listening,” Dorian says, intrigued. There are always people who tell him that - who tell him that they won’t argue with him for whatever reason, when he knows that they desperately want to. She’s right, he’s been through this discussion hundreds of times. He’s heard everything there is to hear.

“One,” Ellana says, “If slavery is not as bad - if slavery, in theory, is a good thing and is only made foul due to how it is implemented and the multiple abuses of power, why is it that the word slave is thought, heard, used, and spoken in such a derogatory manner? And two - positing that these are all things that could change with time and corrections to such abuses - _why does everything within you recoil from that word when it is aimed at you_?”

Dorian blinks and Ellana waves her hand - a sudden movement that jerks him out of the intensity of that last question.

“Don’t answer me, Dorian,” Ellana continues, weary, “I’m not here to talk to you about slavery. Perhaps in the future - when you truly wish to listen with an open mind, yes, I would speak to you about that for _hours_ if you liked. Days, _years_. But today I am not here about that.”

“Yes,” Dorian shakes his head and then sighs, “But on that slightly related topic of _possession_.”

“Yes. You’ve come farther in your practice, I don’t need to watch you as carefully during the day. But it’s - it is still a problem, Dorian. And on this trip - I do not think I will have enough power within me to protect you and everyone else,” Ellana says, “I do not think I will have the _focus_ , either, if I’m being completely honest.”

“Are you planning on being distracted?” Dorian says.

“I plan on having many distractions,” Ellana answers, “Some may even work. It isn’t just a matter of wards, Dorian. It’s a matter of terrain. Of renewed interest. The stone of our rooms remembers the wards after all these months, I don’t know if you’ve noticed. It takes less time for me to draw them, the stone remembers the feeling of them and practically does it itself.”

“That isn’t how I’d describe it, but yes, I do sense a sort of - after image? The feeling version of an image? about the place even when the wards are down.”

“Stone remembers,” Ellana repeats, “But when we leave I will have to draw new wards in a new place every night. In addition the spirits know by now that your room is closed to them at night, that your mind when you are in that room, is not for them. Whether this is something they have learned out of association between time and space, or something they have come to understand by my own methods I am not sure. But once we leave they will be confused. You are not longer in the place you were meant to be at this time, and your mind is brighter than ever without the magic of the stone to hide you. Their interest would be renewed.”

“And you don’t think I am quite under control enough yet to fend them off.”

“You will find, Dorian, that the spirits are much more _active_ in the lands of the elves,” Ellana says and Dorian pointedly looks at the vague green figure that’s been flickering next to Ellana, barely visible, ever since they sat down.

“Is this where I finally get an introduction?”

“Yes,” Ellana says, “Dorian this is Compassion, if you like you may call him Compassion or Cole. And of course, I use _he_ as a - place holder of sorts. Compassion is currently attempting to puzzle through something that happened a few years ago, and finds that it is helpful for him to do it in a certain form.”

“ _Hello,”_ Dorian startles as the word seems almost whispered into his ear.

“Compassion is rather shy,” Ellana’s lip twitches upward, rueful. “Dorian - I want Compassion to be with you when we go. Will you allow him into your mind? He is one of the best spirits I know, he would be able to warn the friendlier spirits away, and he is strong enough to fight off the more malicious ones.”

Dorian’s eyes snap to her, “You want me to allow myself to be possessed.”

“Not in the way you understand it - Compassion would not - he wouldn’t - Compassion would not be moving your body or manipulating your perception or thoughts in any way. He wouldn’t be rifling through your memories and thoughts anymore than he normally does - “

“ _Normally does?_ ”

“ - and it would only be when you’re asleep. You’d feel him there with you. You’d see him, you’d know if he was doing anything. It isn’t in Compassion to _possess_ as you understand it. It goes against his very nature.”

“No, are you out of your skull? _No_ ,” Dorian snaps, moving to get up and Ellana lurches forward out of her half flower and her bandages are stark against his skin as she grips his arm.

“Please - Dorian, I swear to you, this isn’t - he’ll leave when it’s safe. He won’t make you do anything. He won’t ask anything of you. He won’t take from you. He will just be there. Like - like a barrier.”

“In my _mind.”_

 _“Dorian_ \- “ Ellana uses her other hand to reach for something around her neck, jerking a long chord out from underneath her clothing, pulling it over her head and thrusting it at him. “This. I swear to you - with this. Dorian, this is - “

“Blood magic,” Dorian know the feel of this - the touch of it, the taste and memory of it _anywhere_.

“Yes,” Ellana whispers. “Blood magic does not nearly have the same stigma it has among the mortals of the lower realms, but it is - it is rare here as well. If there is anything you believe in Dorian, I know you believe in _this_.”

“What is this?”

“I told you that Compassion has been struggling with a certain problem for a few years - this is what keeps him from going too far. Neither of us like to have it, but it is - it helps him sometimes. It keeps him grounded, it keeps him from straying too far from his purpose. There will come a day when we can remove this shackle from this realm and he can be free once more. But for now we keep it. Dorian, I will give this to you for the duration of time that he is with you. Do you trust this?”

Dorian takes the amulet in his fingers, and it is - familiar and not. Old familiar magic in a new form.

He closes his palm around it and he feels - he feels the faint wisps of something else slide past his mind, not through it, but around it, not quite settling in place, but with fragments faintly sticking.

“Fine,” Dorian whispers. “For now, _fine_.”

“You are still _you_ ,” Ellana closes her hand around his, around the amulet, “This I swear to you. _I would never take that from you_. When the day comes that you are ready to talk about the stone walls and the fear, to speak on slavery, when I am ready to speak of sorrow and loss, you will understand. But right now I need you to trust me, as you have trusted me, in this. There is nothing in this world or any other world I despise more than a lack of choice. I would never take that from you.”


	23. Chapter 23

“Bull, a moment of your time?”

“Busy, Tevinter,” the man says, looking perfectly _not_ busy as he reclines against a tree.

“It strikes me - not for the first time - that I am not the only person from Tevinter in our little group of not immortal elves,” Dorian says.

Bull snorts, “Aclassi is so _not-Tevinter_ that he was _thrown out_. What do you want?”

“To consult with you about something,” Dorian says, taking that as permission to approach. He holds out his hand. Bull raises an eyebrow. Dorian gestures for him to take it, “Ellana gave it to me. I want to know your opinion on it.”

Dorian opens the cloth he’s bundled the necklace in - the second Ellana made sure Dorian wasn’t going to hurl it into the nearest bush she let go of his hand and _vanished_. Dorian hasn’t seen her since and there’s been an unsettling flicker of green at the very edge of his vision that disappears whenever he tries to look at it. And of course, there’s the faintest and uneasy feeling of _being watched_ , and of something just - just _there_ at the edge of his _mind_. Not in it, but not - not away from it. It’s like when a mage throws a spell at him, or when they put up a barrier over him. Magic that isn’t his, foreign, unsettling, _unknowable._

 _“_ She’s giving you jewelry? Granted it’s not that fancy, but I don’t see why you’ve got to ask me about it,” Bull says, allowing Dorian to drop the necklace into his palm.

“It’s a necklace made with blood magic,” Is as far as Dorian gets before Bull does the sensible thing, drawing his arm back and hurling the thing out of sight. Dorian sighs. “It’s a pendant made of blood magic that’s binding a spirit.”

Bull’s eye is sharp on him, “And she gave it to you?”

“Yes, and I was meant to return it eventually,” Dorian replies.

 _I am not yours to throw away_ , a voice doesn’t quite say so much as it picks the words out of Dorian’s head - and Bull’s too - if the way the man stiffens and jerks to full battle ready attention is any indicator. There is a _not-displacement_ of air and the pendant is settled around Dorian’s neck. _Please don’t be afraid, I just want to help. I want to help._

“ _Pavus_ ,” Bull grinds out.

“I was going to get to that bit,” Dorian replies through his teeth, shoulders stiff as the green flicker returns to the corner of his eye, “But you didn’t let me get that far.”

“Next time _lead_ with the part where there’s a fucking demon hanging around you - “

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Ellana gave you that thing?”

“She made me take it,” Dorian says, “She says to make sure I don’t get possessed while we’re away. It’s shoddy logic to me, getting me possessed with one spirit so that - “

“ _You’re possessed_?” Bull bursts out, “Fucking - _Pavus_. I swear to fucking - where the hell is Trevelyan and Rutherford when you need them?”

“ _I’m not possessed,”_ Dorian snaps, throwing up a barrier between them before Bull can do anything, “Would you just _listen to me_ before jumping to conclusions? Ellana seems to think that by having this spirit near me it - _he_ \- will act like some sort of deterrent to other spirits. And yes, the thing is made from blood magic, but that isn’t the point here. The point is - _do you trust that assessment_?”

“Why are you asking _me_? I don’t know shit about magic and spirits,” Bull says.

“But you have a better grasp on Ellana than I do,” Dorian says, “And I want to know what you think. Surely there are other ways to accomplish keeping me safe from the plethora of spirits that are present.”

 _She wants to keep you safe_ , the spirit says, _but it is all going so wrong and within a few short moons she will be changing, changed, always the same, bitter and dark and weak and afraid and everything she is trying to outrun, outlast - like you she’s running, but the difference is that her past has not yet passed. It is still here._

Both Bull and Dorian flinch at the voice that’s somewhat come together as a strange _papery_ sort of feeling - like very fine parchment, or the skin of a garlic clove, rustles around the edges of their ears.

“Alright, I’m not - I need a face,” Bull says.

The green flicker dims and Dorian snaps his head towards it, “She said it - _he_ \- is shy.”

“It said it wanted to help, _so help_.”

 _You don’t like things without faces because they’re too easy to misread,_ the voice says and somewhere to Dorian’s right, in the shadows of another tree a vague half-image that suggests a body glimmers. Like dust motes struck just right. _I understand. Is this enough?_

“I’ll take what I can get - what are you talking about?” Bull asks, turning to the spirit. Dorian extends his barrier over the Iron Bull and the man shoots a quick glance at him before focusing back on the faint outline in front of them.

_I am not supposed to say, but it is you, and I know your purpose. It is strange - I didn’t think people were meant to have a purpose like I do. But you do. But your purpose changes, and it stays the same, and it has always been this, and it should always be this, it is the thing that came out of the stone, the first gasp of freedom -_

“ _Stop_ ,” Bull’s voice is low, more dangerous than Dorian has ever heard it.

 _Don’t be afraid, that is not for you_ , a voice in his ear and Dorian involuntarily jerks away from it and Bull’s gaze snaps to him.

“What happened?”

 _I’m sorry - it’s so hard - he was,_ Dorian’s mind fills with flashes of color, strange textures, and an almost sort of _taste_ that he feels with his _mind_ , _and I can’t help it, it is what I am meant to do, just as you are meant to do - I don’t mean to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you, I should leave but I can’t because she gave you that focus, but that focus is not for you, it doesn’t fit you, its purpose is wrong in your hands but I want to help you -_

“What purpose?” Dorian asks, “She said it keeps you - focused? She said it keeps you present.”

 _Yes_ , the spirit replies, _but it was never meant to be focused on you. It is a shackle that has been slipped onto something too small._

“Shackle?” Bull narrows his eye, “That thing was meant to bind you, he said.”

_Bind me, yes, but no. It was not meant for this._

“Aside from helping Pavus, and I use that word in the _loosest_ sense, what else did she intend by giving this to him?”

 _I’m not supposed to say_ , the spirit wavers, disappearing from sight for a heartbeat before returning.

“It would help us,” Dorian says, “We just want to understand. We might even be able to help. _”_

 _Humans are good at killing their gods_ , the spirit says - sounding different, like it's reciting. _And they are better at killing for them_.

“Yes,” Dorian says.

 _I’m not supposed to say - but you said you will help. You will help? I want to help, too. I want to make the pain, the fear, go away - there is so much hurt here, she never lets me take it even though I want to, it would kill her if I took it, and I don’t understand it - I just want to help_.

“What pain? What fear?” Bull asks, “You said you know my purpose here. I’ll do what I can.”

 _You are a good man_ , the spirit says, and a strange distortion of sound plays out with its words, multiple voices that ring oddly familiar but slip away before Dorian can grasp them. _Yes._

“Why did she give this to me, Compassion?” Dorian asks.

_Because she knew I wouldn’t listen unless she said it would help you, and she wasn’t lying. I knew that. You would have been in pain. I could help. I said yes. But I don’t need the amulet to do that. I have always heard your pain. I will always hear your pain. It’s so loud - not like how you are loud, you are loud in other ways, but this pain is wrong, too loud, empty, laughter that is not laughter, shaking that comes from within -_

“Stop.” Bull says before Dorian can. Dorian’s eyes meet Bull’s, “Pavus, I don’t know what your baggage is. I don’t want to know. Not like this. Look - _Compassion_ , just - focus on the question. _Why did she give him the amulet_?”

 _It binds me, focuses me to pay attention to who has it_ , the spirit answers, feeling out the words, _he gave it to her. When it started to get bad, he asked me to help and I said yes and she was angry. She did not want me to dull her edges. Dorian does not have an edge to dull. She wants to be sharp for what happens next. She wants to feel it when they cut her deep, carve her out and hang her hollow out to drip-drip-dry._

Dorian tries to pick the meaning out of the poetry, and arrives at it slightly faster than the Iron Bull when Compassion flickers a memory at him -

“It’s a method of control,” Dorian says, “You - sedate her?”

_It’s hard. She is so bright, it burns. How do you contain the stars? Dull the sunrise? Dampen the twilight of spring? It is supposed to help. He said it would help. She says I don’t have to do it anymore because it hurts me as much as it hurts her but I am bound. There is nothing to contain in you. You are you, you know who you are, you do not spill over, you are wound and locked and sealed and kept whole._

“If you’re supposed to sedate her,” Bull says, “How do you explain - “

He stops, glancing at Dorian. Then he hums, speculative. Dorian can only guess that Compassion is speaking to Bull, now.

 _I would tell you,_ Compassion says, _if it would help. It would only hurt you - you two made a bargain. I will not take that bargain away. It would hurt you both too much to come back from_.

“Compassion,” Bull says, “She doesn’t tell us these things.”

 _No_.

“Will _you_?”

 _Will it help? I want to help_.

“Yes,” Dorian and Bull say at the same time. “We can’t help her if we don’t know what we’re doing, that would hurt more, I imagine.”

_Yes, I will tell you what I can. I want to help. Am I helping? You feel better. I am glad. There are so many hurts, I am glad that this one is better._

Bull flashes a smile Dorian’s way, triumph and laughter in his dark eye, “And Pavus, I think we just found ourselves an inside man. Good job, Tevinter.”


	24. Chapter 24

“Theron, was it?” Varric asks the tall man walking alongside the stag that he’s thankfully been excused from riding.

“Yup, and it was Varric, right? Swords and Sheilds?” Varric blinks and Theron laughs, “It’s technically contraband up here, but contraband is the smallest rule you can break and the Wolf has always loved breaking rules. I’m pretty sure he loved your _Hard in Hightown_ series, I mean, why else would he have so many copies of it in the library?”

“The Dread Wolf reads _Hard in Hightown_ ,” Varric repeats, “And here I thought things couldn’t get weirder. Are you going to tell me you guys also read Genitivi?”

“Oh _yes_ ,” Theron says, “Absolute _bullshit_ mind you, but it’s _funny_ bullshit. I don’t know if you’ve met her yet - I don’t think she’s had a patrol rotation close to the little wolf’s quarters in a while, but there’s this Sentinel, Iseri, if you get her drunk enough she’ll start imitating Genitivi in the _stupidest_ impression of a Tevinter _anything_ you’ll ever hear in your life. It’s absolutely brilliant, I don’t know if you’d be able to get her drunk on patrol, but it’s great. She used to be one of the Wolf’s scholars before we figured out that she gets really mean with a knife and I think the Wolf actually _smiled_ he was so happy about it. I got hives.”

“You’re absolutely blowing my mind here, my poor dwarf brain can’t handle it,” Varric says, “And uh - how far are we walking, exactly? We aren’t taking one of your fancy mirrors?”

“Taking an Eluvian defeats the point of the entire exercise,” Theron replies, “I mean, we _could_ in an emergency, but we’re going for a nice little hunt, not to run and escape an invading army. Besides, Varric, don’t you _like_ our pretty, pretty green forest? And all of its many, many, _many_ trees that look exactly the same as each other?”

“It’s like you read my mind. You know, Theron, I think you and I are going to get along wonderfully. There are some guys I’d love to introduce to you, you know, if you ever went down to Kirkwall.”

Theron gives Varric a look, “What makes you think I _don’t_ know some of those people already?”

“And here comes the mind blowing reveal, lay it on me.”

“The girl - Merrill, I think? She’s Sabrae, right?” Theron says and Varric raises his eyebrows.

“Yes. You know Daisy?”

Theron scratches at the back of his head, humming, “Sort of. We’re vaguely related. You see - my elder sister and I were part of the Sabrae clan way back when it was still claimed by Andruil. But my family was traded to Sylaise for some apothecaries.”

Varric pulls away from that word, _traded_. He’s a merchant and he knows all about this. He knows all about _people_ being traded and more. It doesn’t mean he likes it, accepts it. It makes him - it makes parts inside of him unsettle, shift, like a handful of loose coin or rocks.

“Long story short, I’m pretty sure Merrill is my great, great, great, great niece or something,” Theron says, doing a great job of ignoring the way Varric is quiet over the word _traded_. “So I _do_ sort of know _one_ of the people you probably had in mind. How _is_ Merrill, by the way?”

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t really had a chance to speak to her in a few months if you catch my meaning.”

Theron blinks, and then something rueful flashes across his face - “Oh. Right. Sorry - it’s just that. Well, I guess for you that _is_ a long time.”

Varric looks up at him, the words _great, great, great, great niece_ turn over in his head.

“And it isn’t for you.”

“No,” Theron’s voice is a little quieter when he answers, “Not at all.”

They’re jerked out of any awkward silence that can follow by Ellana towards the front yelling, _“No!_ ”

Theron is immediately in a dead run and Varric looks forward in time to see Ellana full out tackle Grim’s pack stag clear across to the other side of the wide path. The stag lets out a loud bellow and Ellana says something, sharp in its ear and it immediately goes quiet.

Theron skids to a stop as Ellana throws her arm up, “My lady - “

“Wait,” Ellana says, “No one move. No one speak above a whisper.”

Theron quickly scans the area before his eyes land on something in the grass, “ _Fuck_.”

“Yes, Theron,” Ellana whispers, “Fuck.”

“What is it?” Bull asks, “What’s wrong.”

Ellana brings a finger to her lips and slowly lowers her body to the ground, moving carefully on all fours to approach a clump of green, lowering her ear to the ground.

“Theron?”

“Yes, Wolf Ascendant?”

“If I were to check the archives, or say, go to sleep and dream here for a moment, would I happen to find that this used to be one of the Wolf’s old execution sites?”

Theron’s face twists, “Perhaps.”

Ellana closes her eyes and lies down fully, “Mandragora. _Mandragora_.”

“You’re making us die of suspense because of mandragora?” Dorian asks, and Theron darts over to him and claps a hand over his mouth.

“Yes,” Ellana whispers. Varric goes up next to Dalish who has her hand firmly over Rocky’s mouth and is glaring death at him, probably willing his vocal chords into non-existence. Rocky just holds his hands up in surrender. “But not as you know it.”

“The mandragora of our world isn’t the same,” Dalish explains softly, “There’s more magic here, there’s magic in everything here.”

“Mandrake,” Ellana says, “Is the name you give it when it is something _alive_.”

Stitches’ eyebrows raise, “Those are just tales. They aren’t - _are they real_?”

“Non-plant experts here, what are you talking about?” Krem asks.

“Mandrake grow where people have been hanged,” Ellana whispers, “In your world they are a drug, they can be used to put people to sleep, or to, perhaps assist in their fertility. But here, they do more than that. They are living things, and if you wake them they will kill you. The dead do not appreciate being woken.”

“I’d take her word for it,” Theron says, “The little wolf has drugged us all with it that I would hope she knows what she’s doing by now.”

“You drugged them?” Bull’s eyebrows raise.

Ellana shrugs, “That is neither here nor there.”

“She drugged the Wolf once, and he was so surprised he even let her get away with it,” Theron adds on.

“ _Mahariel, you aren’t helping_ ,” Ellana hisses.

“So what should we do?” Krem asks, “Can’t be loud and I guess that would mean that all of us walking past it is too loud, right?”

“Yes,” Ellana says, “I’m surprised we didn’t wake it up sooner.”

“Should we go around it?” Dorian asks as Theron removes his hand from the man’s mouth, “Go back and find another path?”

Ellana shakes her head, “I don’t want to risk it. I can sense it’s already half awake. And I don’t want to risk anything else waking it, either.”

“Oh, Wolf’s teeth, _no_ ,” Theron groans softly, “You aren’t going to pull it out, are you?”

“Would _you_ like to pull it out, Theron?” Ellana says, “It will hurt, but I can pull it out. It won’t be pretty.”

“Shame, I only like pretty things,” Theron muses. “What about them? I would probably be dumb for a while if I stay here with you as you pull it out, but the rest of them are dead for certain.”

“I know,” Ellana whispers. “So that’s why you, Dorian and Dalish, are going to _levitate_ the others a reasonable distance away, put up a really _thick_ wall of _anything you can,_ and hope that I can do this cleanly before it takes a second breath.”

Theron stares at her, then turns to Dorian, “Did you just hear her say what I think I heard her say?”

“She said levitate but I don’t quite believe my own ears, either,” Dorian replies.

“Dorian,” Ellana says, “What were you telling me the other day about space-time and how it can be adjusted and manipulated?”

“ _In theory, Ellana,_ I was saying it all in _hypotheticals, it isn’t something you can put into practice._ ”

“ _Dorian_ ,” Ellana hisses. “Theron, Dalish, can you do it?”

“I can lead if they can follow,” Theron replies, “But, lady, you know _I’m not one for precision_. Not when it comes to spell work.”

“Theron I am trusting you with the lives of my entire household right now, that isn’t what I want to hear from you.” Ellana says, raising her hand and gesturing at him. Theron undoes his belt and throws it at her hand.

“Why are things never simple with you?” Theron says, “Fine. Alright. While she gets ready on her end, let’s get all of you to a distance where you won’t die and _we_ won’t die of magical exhaustion.”

“What exactly,” Bull says, catching Theron’s arm in his hand, “Is she going to do?”

“She’s going to pull it out,” Theron says, “And take the killing breath so that the rest of us don’t have to.”


	25. Chapter 25

Before Bull can do the logical thing of physically drag Ellana away from the death plant, a voice - familiar and eerie - slides across the back of his skull and down his chest.

_This is for you, and only for you, because she knows that you are charged with this lifetime but she wants you to know this and this and this - will you let me tell it to you in her voice that is not her voice but my voice? Will you let me help you both?_

Bull grinds his teeth and Ellana’s eyes are deep things looking back at him as Pavus, Dalish, and the Sentinel softly inch closer to each other to discuss their next move; their seemingly impossible task that Ellana has demanded of them.

_Trust her, because she has done this before and lived. Trust her because she has been doing this for a long, long time._

Define a long time, Bull thinks but before Bull can say that the spirit says -

_Long before you were born, long before you and them and the events that have brought you here._

The voice that says this is not Compassion’s strange papery whisper, suggestions of sound. It is that and over it, far and close at the same time, mind bogglingly paradoxical to the point where it threatens to make Bull’s head hurt, it is Ellana’s voice.

_It was the game they did not know was not a game, it was a game they did not know was not a game for them but a game for someone else, but it was weeding and sorting and culling the herd. It was checking the crops but it was not the crops they thought. It was a game but they did not know what they would win but they thought it would be fun, until the others began to die and they did not die but they saw everyone else surrender._

Ellana’s eyes are deep and dark, but under that layer is the familiar bone-white. Revealed by a soft movement of her lips opening, parting, pushing away a heavy, heavy veil.

_Before this, this was her job. Find the mandrake, pull it out. Present it to the -_

The words garble here and Bull tries to find the words on his end, to suggest what should come next. But he has to grind his teeth to the strange jumbled buzzing - what sounds like the spirit and Ellana arguing over something before Ellana’s voice overwhelms the tangled sound and firmly says -

_Present it._

The period of that sentence is practically shot into his mind.

You want me to put aside everything I promised to do a lot, Bull thinks, what is the point in making me - all of us - make these promises if you don’t let us fulfill them? Why do you want to make us into liars?

A louder jumble, something that could be Ellana laughing, and a sharp twang that distinctly feels like _not_ Ellana.

 _You were all liars before I got to you_ , first - and then, _I would not ask of you to do something you cannot do._

Bull jerks his head towards the three who are furiously whispering to each other from almost an arm’s distance away.

 _I ask them because they can, I know it_ , Ellana-Compassion replies, a warm curl of surprising trust that makes Bull’s mind stumble. For someone who lies, who hides, who subverts - there is an amazing amount of just - just _trust_ there.

Is there ever a single moment in your life where you _aren’t_ on the brink of death? Bull asks, Because you seem to be there a lot for someone who’s supposed to be immortal.

Silence on the other side, and Ellana’s face flashes from ruefulness to something blank, familiar like a bleached and worn bone, resigned and cracking apart.

 _That’s the thing,_ the voice is almost entirely hers now, the faintest traces of paper, _in order to be immortal, one must first die. Death has had me since the moment I was born. I just want to chose the way I die_.

Bull gestures at the plant.

Ellana’s smile is quick, _This is not how I die_.

Explain that, Bull thinks at her, explain the killing scream to me because it sounds pretty damn clear from where I stand.

Ellana closes her eyes and breathes out once.

Compassion’s voice floods him with sensations before picking out the words, drawing them out of him and leaving raw tracks -

_She will survive the killing scream because this is not the way she dies. It is not the way she chooses, it is not the way Death chooses for her. Death loves her, Death desires her, Death long to pick her apart and taste her pieces. She has escaped Death but she knows it is only a matter of time. Death taught her everything she knows; made her and sculpted her. This is not the way she dies because Death wants to taste her suffering, wants her to be ripe with it - she is not yet done. Death is not yet done. She will survive the killing scream because she knows how, because Death taught her the secret art of escape and was foolish enough to think she would not use it to slip past - it cost her and she is crippled and she will always be crippled, a cripple, a failure and a shattered thing, cracked down the middle and set loose - but she will survive even if she is no longer alive she will survive it because this is not how she will die._

Bull does not understand, except to think that Ellana is censoring out a name here. The word _death_ is super imposed over something else.

Ellana’s chin slightly moves down. Yes.

But how?

 _I will dig a trough around the mandrake, slowly, carefully,_ Ellana replies, _and then I will tie my belt to Theron’s, looping around the mandrake, slowly cinching it closed. And then I will run in the other direction of you, pulling it out. I will hear the first scream. The killing scream. You will not. Theron and the others will have made a barrier. I will be able to dampen the affect after it hits me, before it hits you._

That implies that you’re faster than sound.

 _I can be if I wish, it is a matter of perspective. When you are dead there is no time, and you are faster than anything_.

But this is not how you die.

_No._

I get the feeling that you and I are using the same word with different meaning implied.

_This upsets you because in the Qun there is one word for everything and all the words are pieces that construct greater things. Every word and syllable has assigned meaning. They are not meant for double and triple talk. How does that work with a liar?_

Is this your way of saying you don’t want to talk about it?

_I want to save your life._

I don’t want you to. What is the use of a sword you don’t use?

 _What is the use of a sword in a situation that requires a rope?_ Ellana’s hand splays on the ground between them. _This is not a situation you can argue about, the Iron Bull.  This is not a situation you are capable of out thinking, out smarting. I will do this. You will live. We will continue and perhaps - perhaps - I will even tell you a secret._


	26. Chapter 26

Krem can't help but replay the moment over in his mind, seeing it in flashes and glimpses that startle themselves to the forefront of his thoughts and then jaunting off before he can really understand the particulars of it.

Mostly he can’t understand why she did it. It is one thing for the would-be-elven-god to be nice to you, it is another thing entirely for them to almost - actually - die for you.

There is nothing anyone here has done to earn or possibly _buy_ that kind of -

That kind of anything.

Krem had asked her once about the war - the many, _many_ wars that humans and Qunari have been waging against each other and the elves.

Ellana had given him a funny look and then said, _but that is not war, Krem_.

He had replied, because he’s never been good at holding his tongue, that from a standpoint of a soldier about to be skewered or blasted to pieces, it did look a lot like war.

Ellana’s look only grew and then she told him that it wasn’t a war because the people sent down to fight were not soldiers of the Pantheons. Krem had asked who they were.

Her answer to that was _children._

Krem has seen a few of the battlefields after a skirmish, he’s even been caught at the edges of a few.

They did not look like children.

 _They were sent to practice, to play, to learn and prove themselves worthy_ , Ellana explained to him, _I was sent below myself a few times before I proved myself capable enough to start handling minor jobs_.

Krem had been confused at that. It didn’t make sense. Why bother to send - what he supposes would be green horns to fight? Why fight at all? How are the elves ever going to conquer anything like that? Isn’t that their goal? Claim and capture?

Ellana had laughed a light, frightening thing before she quieted and looked at him - pitying and a little patronizing. _That is what Tevinter has told you, what Orlais has told you, what Ferelden and Antiva and all the others have told you. But tell me, Krem, would you seek to conquer and capture an ant hill?_

Why would someone lay down their life - literally - for an ant?

There are so many pieces that don’t add up. Krem is a soldier, his job isn’t the why’s or how’s, it’s not even the price paid. His job isn’t to think, it’s to act.

But that won’t stop him from doing those things anyway - Rocky always accuses him of being an over achiever.

Krem glances at the woman out of the corner of his eye. She’s mostly upright, riding behind Dalish on a stag, head covered by her cloak, quiet but _alive_ despite the name _killing scream_.

He doesn’t doubt its potency. Even with the power of three mages - one of them a full, immortal elf - the sound was enough to make Krem fall down and black out for a few minutes. Skinner weakly smacked him awake, more of a tap mixed with him just happening to come back to it, really. And half of the branches of the trees close to them were snapped off and tangled and snared into the tree canopy.

Pavus, Dalish, and Theron all look vaguely green around the edges and have been for the past few hours - magical exhaustion.

Theron told them, voice low - _Close your eyes, do not look. We here all know that death is not a pretty thing; this is not something to try and brave witness._

And because when an immortal elf who’s probably seen worse shit than you have in your short lifetime says something like that, it mostly beats out your curiosity. So Krem didn’t look. Krem closed his eyes and fucking _hoped_.

But Krem did make the mistake of looking over at her when we was conscious and capable of sitting up again.

It’s hard to believe she’s capable of sitting up and quietly talking with Dalish and whoever goes up next to her, coherently even, when there was so much blood.

He’s pretty sure that amount of blood is supposed to be _inside_ your body for you to be alive. Also, parts of your skull shouldn’t be scattered around like the splatter of a bird shit.

That’s the kind of thing that’s going to fuck you up, especially when you see the rest of the body start moving.

Krem can’t even begin to imagine the kind of pain that must have caused. And Krem is pretty creative about this kind of thing.

“You trying to figure it out, too?” Varric asks. Krem nods, just a little. There is something familiar in the way Ellana _is_. Something in the way she just - she just _exists_ that reminds him of someone. Maybe it’s the way that she cants her face in the Chief’s direction and answers his pointed looks with nonchalant shrugs of her shoulders.

“There’s too much we don't know,” Krem says, “I don't think we’ll ever know.”

“Who doesn’t like a mystery woman?” Varric says, “Do you ever really _know_ a person?”

“Let’s not get philosophical here,” Krem turns to Varric, who Krem assumes has guts of steel because of his time in Kirkwall. “You get anything out of Mahariel?”

“He knows Daisy,” Varric says, “Which while interesting isn’t exactly helpful for gauging the political temperature or anything else currently attempting to make me go bald. Andraste’s flaming sword of mercy - and I thought Kirkwall was going to be the end of me.”

“Kirkwall was the start of you,” Krem says, “Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m an author, I am nothing without drama. Besides, compared to Pavus I’m stone cold sober.”

Pavus is currently out cold - he had a pretty bad nose bleed and a huge migraine afterwards, and then he passed out, and Theron said to leave him alone and let him sleep it off. He’ll wake up when he’s hungry. Or needs to piss. Hopefully he wakes up before he pisses himself.

That’s another thing too -

What Pavus - what the three of them did.

That goes beyond _anything_ Krem has ever seen, ever heard of - it goes far beyond _everything_ -

“Don’t think about it,” Skinner’s voice comes from behind them, startling them both. “Just don’t think about it.”

Krem turns around to say something, sees the far away look in her eyes, and hears the strange not-tremor that slides underneath her words. _Don’t think_.

He nods and looks forward.

He is a soldier.


	27. Chapter 27

“I knew that something like this would happen,” Ellana admits, when the Iron Bull draws close enough to where Stitches and Theron made her sit down, Dorian’s head in her lap as she gently combs her weak fingers through his hair and _willing_ it to be comforting. There is nothing left in her for comfort. He meets her gaze with feigned nonchalance.

“What?” He says; one short word that teeters on the edge of violence, of outrage. Incredulity.

“I knew that something like this would happen,” Ellana repeats. “It always does. That’s why we were confined to my glade to start with. Whenever I leave it - if I’m not in the Wolf’s immediate vicinity something like this happens. Especially during - especially around this time of year. I didn't anticipate a mandrake, though. I’m not sure if this is coincidence or an especially clever plot.”

In her free hand Ellana runs her thumb over the now sealed mouth of the mandrake. She glances down at it. The whorls in the root that can be vaguely constituted as eyes spiral up at her, imploringly. The small roots and hair-like offshoots that are somewhat reminiscent of slowly moving undulating flesh feebly try to curl around her hand. She’d put it down - let it go - if she didn’t think it would run.

She’ll take it back, prepare it and give it Lyna as a gift. Ellana, after all, almost did just get her younger brother killed.

“You knew - “ The Iron Bull starts, stops, takes in a single controlled breath and in an impressively level voice asks, “If you knew, you should have warned me to be prepared for something targeted at you. Aside from normal. If you knew that you’d be vulnerable you shouldn’t have put yourself - all of us - in a position where we could be blindsided like that. I’m starting to think that you _want_ one of these things - I don’t even know how many _things_ \- to kill you.”

“I don’t,” Ellana replies, gazing towards the rest of them. Moving and talking and just - happy to be out and away from the walls and the eyes and the formality.

“Then _why_?”

Ah, the age old question of _why_.

Ellana cannot use the answer she always gives everyone else when they ask her why she does anything. _Because I can_.

The Iron Bull is not in on that particular joke.

He would not understand.

What would the Iron Bull understand of Ellana Lavellan, slave to the Raven of Deceit? What would he know of her fear? What would he know of the confusion, the dizzying rush of finally feeling alive? What would he know of the weight of a thousand things burning away and looking into death itself and telling it to fuck off? What would he know of that first step, that first challenge, and _success_?

Ellana closes her eyes and breathes in, feels the deep, deep ache that will never, ever leave her.

It’s almost amusing; how something that happened centuries ago still hurts her so deeply even when the memory isn’t quite fresh. It still hurts her. Not as much as the other hurts from the same time, but still it hurts.

There was first the confusion of returning to the compound and finding it empty. Not a single person left, not even the babies or the women with child were in their barracks. And then the horror of understanding when she arrived at the compound’s main hall to check if they were all - for whatever reason - sent on assignment.

Two hundred flight feathers, neatly bundled and numbered.

Knowing what Ellana knows now, she would still go back and do what she had done to arrive here - wolf instead of raven, fangs instead of wings - but she would have prepared more. Taken extra steps. Ellana would have been endlessly more careful.

Anything - anything at all to keep her _lethallin_ , even at the cost of those two hundred.

The Wolf, then, had told her that the path to godhood was not bloodless. But Ellana came into this world covered in blood. She knew that already.

Ellana runs her hand through Dorian’s hair and feels parts of her pulling away, pulling back because even though time goes on these are wounds she can’t bear to look at. The wheel always returns to the same point and Ellana has been running against the wheel since one hundred crows cast their blood magic in favor of the Crafter.

 _Because I can_ is an answer. It’s even honest. But it is not one the Iron Bull would understand.

The facts, he can.

Ellana gives him that. She promised him a secret, and this is a secret, if only because no one dares to speak about it.

“Every god has a season,” Ellana says, “A season, a festival, a time of honor made for them to celebrate their - It varies. The Sun descended from the ether. Halla Mother was exalted. The Great Mother surfaced from the ocean’s depths. Within two moons it will be the Crafter’s turn. But he, _The Crafter_ , was not born. He did not surface, or sprout, or become elevated.” Ellana turns to look at the Iron Bull to push this point home to him.

To the Iron Bull the others of the pantheon are just _men_. Women.

“The Crafter _revealed_ himself _,”_ Ellana says. “He was not _born_ of a god. He was not _made_ into one by the others. Halla Mother was the only one not born to godhood, but she was exalted to it by bargains and promises and favors and contracts drawn between the others at the time. The crafter - no one knows how the Crafter came to be. The Crafter _revealed_ himself as a god one day, and no one could find fault with him.”

The Iron Bull takes this explanation and waits, the spy, the curious listener, the learner, the observer.

“On these special days, during special anniversaries of such times,” Ellana says, “The others of the pantheon are required to offer tribute. Around the time of the Crafter’s day of revelation I.”

Ellana pauses, turns the injury over in her head.

“Around the time of the Crafter’s day of revelation, I did something,” Ellana says, “I committed a crime against the pantheon. And I am punished for it. Normally I hide, normally the Wolf conceals me - sometimes he even puts me to sleep for a few months and keeps me hidden in a secret place only he knows. But this year is an anniversary for the Crafter. A special number, one of the century marks or so - it gets hard to remember. And as we all know, politics - “

“My favorite word,” The Iron Bull mutters.

“ - plays a part in these sort of festivities. The Hearth Keeper and the Wolf are not enemies, at least, not usually. For whatever reason, the Hearth Keeper and the Raven Twins are at odds. And because of that, the Crafter - partner of the Hearth Keeper - saw it fit to warn the Wolf that the Raven Twins had something planned.”

Ellana carefully moves her hand from Dorian’s hair. She doubts he’d be very pleased if he woke up not only incredibly groggy but also bald.

“I must attend the Crafter’s celebration - it was _suggested_ by the Sun. I haven’t - I haven’t been formally presented to the pantheon. Not really. And it has been unacceptable for that. Inappropriate, and I could only get away with it for so long.” Ellana breathes in carefully, feels the many aches that are and aren’t there. “Knowing all this - the Wolf would normally have said no to my request to leave with the rest of you. But - I don’t know, perhaps because we were both tired, both raw, maybe he wanted me to have something nice before the Crafter’s celebrations, he said yes.”

Ellana turns her eyes towards Theron, “And he had me take a Mahariel with me, because the Mahariel siblings are very good energy sources and he thought I would need one. I bet that Theron’s sister is even following us from afar as we speak to make sure things are alright.”

Ellana turns back to the Iron Bull.

“In short, I wanted to come out here knowing all this because _I wanted to_. Because I have been running for so long I do not know how to stop. Because I can see a wall in front of me and I am speeding towards it and I know one of us will break on impact and maybe enough of me will survive to make it through.” Ellana swallows and continues, “I wanted to come here because I am afraid, and seeing you out here like this makes me less afraid.”


	28. Chapter 28

Ellana's hand is gentle, careful - not quite certain, familiar in the distant way Dorian’s memories of his mother, imagined or real, are. As if she isn’t quite sure what she's doing, exactly.

He comes to consciousness feeling incredibly groggy, the inside of his nose crusted with dried blood, ears cracking with it, too. His mouth tastes like something incredibly bitter and just short of all out death.

“How much of that did you hear?” Ellana asks him, and Dorian manages to piece that question together after three tries. Dorian groans and raises a hand vaguely up and mimes _words_ , flapping his fingers open and closed.

“Enough to know that this hunting party wont make me miss home at all,” Dorian says after a few tries of swallowing and not wanting to gag, “Near death instances, terrible timing, awkward political passes, tentative alliances - what I’m pretty sure counts as blood magic -, all we’re missing is the ritual orgies.”

“But we’re only on day one, Dorian, aren’t we supposed to be saving the best for last?”

“Oh _you_ ,” Dorian cracks his an eye open, decides that it isn’t so bad, and then opens both eyes. “What happened?”

“I pulled the mandrake out, subdued it, you and the others didn’t die,” Ellana says, “And now we’re all feeling quite sick so we’re taking a little sit down far, far away from where we all had an unpleasant bonding experience.”

“About that,” Dorian says, “Mind giving me a hand with the whole healing thing? I’m all out, I’m afraid.”

“So are the rest of us,” Ellana replies.

“I didn’t know gods could run out of energy.”

“I’m not quite at godhood yet, Dorian,” Ellana replies, “And I’ve never had to save almost a dozen people from dying, plus keep three of them alive past magical burn out, before. It was a learning experience for all of us, and you’ll just have to keep that magical hangover as a fond memory of it.”

“How lovely,” Dorian says at the same time a paper-voice folds itself across the back of his eyes -

_She isn’t telling you the real truth, just a version of it. It’s because she doesn’t want you to know. She doesn’t want you to know how far down the tear goes, the rip, the crack, the sundering - she doesn’t want you to know the thoughts: if she were whole again, if she were better, if she was solid, if she were real, if she were perfect again -_

Dorian pushes the thoughts that aren’t his away -

“While we’re talking about learning experiences, how did you know that it would work?”

“You’ve talked about your research enough for me to grasp the basics of it. With Theron powering your spell and Dalish acting as conduit between you, the probability of it going off was much higher than you working alone,” Ellana says.

“You _guessed_.”

“I prefer the word _gambled.”_

 _“You gambled on theoretical time and space altering magic_.”

“I gambled on _your_ theoretical time and space altering magic,” Ellana corrects him, faint light at the edges of her smile, amused and delighted.

Dorian just stares up at her.

“You’re brilliant, Dorian,” Ellana says, “I knew you could do it.”

“Brilliant for a human.”

“Brilliant for anything with a _pulse_ ,” Ellana says, “I wish you believed it as much as you say it - but you _are_ an absolute genius. The connections between spells and magical theories you’ve made are phenomenal. I can only imagine what you’ll be able to do if you had the full extent of one of our scholar’s education. The things you’ve accomplished and figured out - given that you’re working with fragments of fragments - it’s all astounding.”

 _She means every word of it,_ Compassion - again. _When she looks at you she can’t believe what she’s seeing. She’s never known anyone like you. Brave and beautiful, so vibrantly alive despite everything trying to take that away from you. She’s jealous of you; she wishes she turned out half as bright as you._

Ellana’s hand is firmer, more confident as she traces the side of his face with her hand. The bandages that are always wrapped around her hand and arm are soft, smooth, against his skin.

“You terrified me, you know,” Dorian closes his eyes.

The amulet is a foreign weight on his chest, one that he doesn’t think he will ever get used to - one he hopes he doesn't get used to.

“But in that moment, you loved it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Dorian says.

How could he not?

He was terrified, of course, but it was - it was astounding. Absolutely astounding. It was greater than anything he’s ever done in his life.

He had felt - Theron’s magic was so _raw_. So impossibly _pure_ and light and damn perfect in comparison to everyone else Dorian has ever worked with. He thought he might have fainted from how strong it was. But Dalish somehow - somehow it all wove together through her. And all the possibility was at his fingers.

It was so easy. Easier than he ever could have dreamed - all he had to do was part the energy there, and pull, and move the threads of space, softly, carefully, like parting fine hair for a braid.

Dorian can’t even - he can’t even remember, really, how he did it. It just all flowed into and through him. His hands knew what to do, the energy knew where to go. It knew exactly how to _be_.

He knew exactly how to move them to safety, or at least, a few feet.

If he only had something to write with - some paper - anything to jot down some notes -

And if he had only been able to stay conscious _after_ doing it, too.

“Do you think I could ever do that again?” Dorian asks.

“I would start with something smaller, now that _you_ know you can do it,” Ellana says, “Like a leaf.”’

“I’m not hearing a no.”

“I’m not giving you a no.”

“I’m not quite sure if you’re trying to get me killed or not,” Dorian muses. “But you’re an awful tease and I sometimes wish I had known someone like you sooner.”


	29. Chapter 29

This, this finally, is something Ellana knows she can do. This is something she was bred to do.

Ellana, by whatever mistake made on the Raven’s part, came out ambitious and angry rather than mindful and forgiving. But at the very least she is good at being quiet, she is good at being unassuming, and she is _very_ good at remembering things.

The latter, perhaps, is why she was a failed Raven. The latter, perhaps, is why the Wolf responded to her.

The latter is definitely the reason why she is here, today.

Ellana pushes aside her hahren’s commandments, his will, his orders -

_From today onwards you are a Wolf. They who came before you are no longer your elders. I am your only hahren. Forget everything. You will be remade as you should have been from the beginning. You are a Wolf._

Ellana’s mind traces back, traces the footprints in the snow - the wolf’s tracks - to the irregular scratches of bird claws.

Here, and here, and here. The memories she needs.

They had been children in every sense. Young and clumsy and painfully unaware of what their games were meant to be. Ellana used to wish she had died in those games. That she had been weak. That she had not been strong enough, that she had been smarter, than to succeed.

Ellana no longer wishes those things.

If Ellana did not survive the games that were not games, if Ellana did not have the memories that hurt her, she would not be here and she would not be capable of saving the Iron Bull and Dalish and Krem and Dorian and Theron and the rest of their lives.

These are the things that she must remind herself of.

Ellana closes her eyes and wishes she could submerge herself in the sound of Dorian and Theron and Dalish; she wishes she could wrap their mana around herself like a blanket and bury her face into their scent and find comfort. She wishes that this discussion of magic and theory and the melding of schools was happening seated around a fire or lying under the stars or eating dried apples picked from her garden and dried on the grass outside of the kitchens.

She can feel the pulse of the mandrake and she pushes herself into her memories, off a cliff - forced to become the raven again or sink.

This has always been her.

 _Survive_ , everything in her demands as she wraps her memories around herself.

The goal of the game was to bring the right root to the masters, the most powerful root.

The masters would be pleased with you and smile at you and perhaps even give you a sweet or a soft kiss on the forehead. They might even allow you to kiss them in return.

The easy part is finding the root, in that field why would the masters want any of the other poisons? Common enough and apparent in droves. But the one - there is only _one_ of that plant, so shouldn’t it follow that this one plant was special?

Pulling it out was the challenge.

What they learned was this -

Ellana’s hands shift into slight claws and she begins to dig.

You dig a moat around the castle of the root, dig it deep and dig it gently. Perhaps there are dungeons in this castle, you don’t want to disturb them. Do not dig so that the castle falls, dig around, dig as deep as you can.

Once it is deep enough, fill the moat.

Ellana breathes carefully and slowly lowers the circle of the lasso she fashioned from her and Theron’s sashes and belts. She makes sure the other end is secure around her waist.

It is slow work, to build the moat and then fill it you must move slowly as if you are time itself.

She can feel Theron and Dorian’s magic spinning together under Dalish’ careful and watchful eye. She resists the temptation to turn to it, to draw it in, to allow herself to bear witness. There will be time, she tells herself. There will be time.

Ellana feels it when their magic succeeds and knows she does not have much time because the magic is already becoming undone.

The magic of gods is not the magic of mortals.

Gods have nothing to lose when they gamble with life.

This is where Ellana was taught to change. Change into a dog so you can run the other way - a bird is too light, not fast enough. Cats don't have the same strength and are more vulnerable to magic. Dogs are better.

But the parts inside of her that are _not_ her - not yet - demand that she doesn’t change. That she remains as she is. Woman and god-to-be. The parts of her that are _not_ her remind her that she is to forget what she has learned.

Dogs are not better. Dogs die just as well.

Dogs just make the masters laugh, because it reminds them of the Wolf and the suffering they put him through once many turns ago.

The parts inside of her that remind her of this do not necessarily have fangs or many eyes. They, perhaps, have a strong jaw. Gray eyes that are soft at the edges. A strong nose and faint lips that part softly when they sigh and are dry and careful when they kiss the no-longer-visible scar between her brows. Long hands that trace the scar on her palm. A matching scar over a strong beating heart.

Mana that is rich and old and quiet like the depths of a forest, alive with a pulse of its own.

Ellana does not change. She turns and she runs - this is what she does best, better than everything else, she runs - and she does not look back.

Before she would have relied on -

But he is no longer here for her to rely on -

Instead she has gray eyes that harden at the edges and a strong nose that leads to narrow lips that curl up when he snaps at her for doing something reckless, and long hands that shake her like he can physically instill some kind of compliance into her jagged bones.

Ellana plunges into that, drawing out as much energy as she can even though her hahren took most of it back from her.

The mandrake’s scream is not so much a scream as it is a blast of sound that takes form and blasts everything around it.

Ellana is closest to it.

She feels the wave of sound hit her, slowly stretching and pushing against skin and bone and brain and nerves. She feels them as they start to stretch apart, smearing and sliding away from each other as she falls to the ground, her body coming undone.

The body is weak.

Ellana’s spirit is broken. But it has always been strong.

_Isn’t that why they had to take half of it away?_

This is not when she dies.


	30. Chapter 30

Before the Wolf, before the Crafter, before all of this -

Before the Iron Bull and Dorian, before Surana’s endless games, before the dozens of ravens that watch her and love her and mock her without ever knowing, before Dalish and the blood of god-killers in her veins, before Varric and his clever words, before Compassion and the flicker of knives in her dreams, before the Wolf and Compassion pushed down on the rising tide inside of her and tried to close the lid, before the scar on her palm that matches the scar on his heart -

It was her and it was _him_ and it was _the Masters_.

Ellana no longer has a master, but here are the memories. Here are the memories that slide over her eyes as she runs, still a woman, as the mandrake’s shriek slides the pieces of her body apart and away, sound threading through her sinews and blood and bones like fingers in running water.

How did Ellana survive before?

Before, when her body forgot its shape, before her mind could slip past the doors and into death, someone else remembered her shape for her, someone else caught her mind and put her back.

That person is no longer here.

But Ellana remembers what it was like. She remembers when someone remembered her and called her name and said _no_ , and she turned back and was remade. Ellana remembers that.

Ellana must remember it for herself, now.

But in between, there is this -

Theron is about to burn out. Dorian is about to extinguish. Dalish is about to be shredded. They are not going to survive.

Ellana, who is not Ellana because she is not a body but a thought - a concept -, slides away from herself and conjures the images of them. Here, yes. And here, yes. And yes, here.

Ellana is a concept, and things like time and space do not apply to concepts. She looks and sees her body unravelling across the soil and grass, red blood turning into spheres as they hover in air, contemplating their fall. She ghosts a thought over the ripples in her flesh as it tears asunder.

There is a bright, deep in its intensity, shallow in its color, light that cracks through the bandages that are unraveling from her arm. It unravels because the arm the bandages should be bound is liquifying. Bandages are not meant to hold liquids.

Ellana turns. She is a concept, not a body. She can fix that later. Time can be made. Bodies can be remade.

A memory - she feels the parts of her body that are not hers change, foreign and distant and familiar all at once. But wrong. Painful, constricting. She cannot breathe. That is a memory.

Ellana, the concept, does not need that memory. As a concept it is easy to discard it, like a shawl she no longer needs.

She turns to Dorian, Theron, and Dalish. She makes the time to admire them properly, to soak in the beauty of the magic she knew they could do. She imagines herself in Theron’s place and allows herself a touch of envy. She can make space for that.

Dorian’s eyes are wide and blown with wonder, mouth parted. He is beautiful and young and so very, very brilliant. Theron looks amazed, confounded. It is a good look on him. She thinks that they - the elves - could stand to be confused and surprised more often. Complacency has never been attractive.

And Dalish - Dalish with her fair hair and her brand of betrayal - Dalish looks at peace. This is where she belongs. What she is. Doer of the impossible. It is in her blood.

Ellana, the concept, moves over to them and away from Ellana the body. She kisses Dorian, the body, lightly over his parted lips and breathes a part of Ellana, the concept, into him. Just a small piece. She kisses Theron and Dalish, too.

She looks around at the energy they have amassed. Most of it is Theron’s, as he powers and fine tunes Dorian’s spell work. Dorian knows the spell and so he must make it, but he does not have enough power, so Theron must add his own strength. But Dorian and Theron both have conflicting magical types, and so Dalish must play intermediary - not quite quickened, not quite the same as she would have been.

Ellana traces her fingers over the paths of magic in the air as Dorian pulls their household out of time, displacing them - the arithmetic that goes into this is phenomenal.

She looks at the Iron Bull and is unsurprised to see that he is looking at her - Ellana, the body.

Theron had told them not to look.

Ellana the concept moves closer to him, and looks at him the way she is not free to when she is Ellana, the body. Strong, capable hands. Tired and proven lines around the corners of his eyes. A beautiful mouth. Certain and steady shoulders. She traces a finger over his scars, silvery - some -, almost lavender - most -, and a few like dawn, fresh. Ellana’s own scars - on the body - are no longer visible to the untrained eye.

They were not always scars. They were not meant to heal.

He is a good man.

 _Yes,_ Ellana the concept turns to Compassion the spirit. Watery eyes and a plaintive nose and drooping straw for hair.

Ellana slides the concept of a hand into the Iron Bull’s fist and wishes she could make him understand. She took him because she had to. She keeps him because she wants to. Ellana is tired of losing.

It hurts less to love small things, that is what the masters taught them without telling them. But Ellana is quickly learning that the Iron Bull is not a small thing. His life will pass hers and he will be gone, but she will feel it.

 _You don’t have to_ , Compassion says. _You chose to feel_.

Ellana blooms the concept of a smile.

The word _choose_ is a beautiful one. It is everything she has ever desired.

Ellana closes her eyes and feels all of the choices standing here. The Iron Bull and his men, Dorian and Varric, Theron and Cole.

She is back by Ellana the body again, and she looks down at the mandrake, dirt covered with its whorl of a mouth open in a shriek that concepts cannot hear. Ellana touches it with her fingers and forces her will onto it. Be silent, she thinks at it, be still. You are not a dead thing, nor am I. Shall I be your new womb?

She curls her energy around it, carefully winding and spooling the killing scream back into the mandrake’s mouth. She plucks each grain of sound out of the air, reels them all in, winding them all up carefully and returning them to the mandrake.

She molds the mandrake’s mouth closed.

Ellana turns back to her mages, sees where they will begin to crack and where they will shatter. Ellana reaches into herself and begins to unspool her own mana, tying one end to the pieces of herself that she left behind in them. And she begins to tie them together, to reinforce the drying riverbeds, to strengthen the brittle bones and the bleaching sands within them. She reminds their bodies what they want to be, what they like to look and feel like. She reminds their blood that it is red and that their bones are white and that this is the beat of their heart.

She sinks a palmful into each of them, extra, just enough to keep their cores burning.

She turns to herself, and faintly ties a string from spine to skull, to remind her bones which parts connect to which. The blood is a lost cause. More can be made. The organs can be fixed.

Ellana the concept has time.

The spool in her hands is almost empty, and it is empty by the time she is done. She scrapes her fingers over the sealed of brim of energy that is hers but not hers, credit she cannot take in advance.

It is enough. She will live.

Ellana forces herself to remember - she forces herself to look into her face and remember that this is what her nose looks like, her eyes, her mouth. This is the place where her hahren kisses her. This is the place where the birds snip at her earlobe.

 _You can do it fine on your own_ , Compassion says, _you don’t need anyone else_. _You are yourself. You have always been yourself_.

Ellana, the concept, laughs.

“You have only met me after I was broken,” Ellana says to him, not unkindly, “You did not know me when I was perfect.”

 _But you are not yet god_ , Compassion says, _you have not been perfected_.

But Ellana the concept is already returning to Ellana the body.

She is out of time.

Compassion slides out of her vision, but Ellana remembers to smile.

The spool snaps taught and begins to rapidly pull everything back together again.

Time resumes.

They are all themselves, once more.


	31. Chapter 31

She kept waiting for her heart to break so it could finally be over; so she could finally, finally heal.

But it _didn’t_ , it _didn’t_ finally break apart, asunder, to pieces. It just kept coming back together, failed and improper, malformed and grotesque and undeniably _wrong_. It just kept pulling itself together at the final hour, in the last minute, it kept _daring to hope for more_ and there is no way to rebuild, restructure, return if it is not yet over. But it was never _over_.

It kept _going and going and going and going into the horizon on wings she lost until she was blind with the sun_.

It didn’t _break_ , it didn’t set - lodged in her chest, releasing more poison, more infection, with every breath and beat and breach -

(I could take it away from her if it wouldn’t kill her, if she wouldn’t force it to kill her. She has built a life around this wound that has not healed. She does not want it to heal; she wants it to poison and infect and decay. She thinks it’s proof that she is this, she is the wound, but she is not. She does not want it - her - to heal. It has _bound her_ , _built_ her, borne her.

The wound is her boundary. She does not want to escape it.)

Some people are defined by their wounds, and when I take it away - when we take it away - they flounder, forget, flotsam in an infinite sea. They are not like us. We always know where we are in any ocean because we are always ourselves, we are thought. We are concepts.

I am always Compassion because that is my purpose, it cannot be taken away because you cannot take away myself from myself.

Qunari and elves have this same purpose, for the most part. It is not the same as spirits, but it is similar. Their purpose is made part of them, etched into the things that make their bodies, their minds, their foundations. When you take away that purpose it collapses. Sometimes they can rebuild around that with what is left.

Usually they cannot.

I pull myself away from the many scars of the Iron Bull’s mind, because he still has purpose, because he does not know what his mind has done to keep him alive, because people rarely know what their purest selves do to keep them alive.

But I whisper, as softly and carefully as I can so I do not scare him because the Iron Bull is afraid of me and things like me because that is part of his foundation even though it is something he is already changing -

 _You are right_.

I do not tell him her secret that is not a secret, because everyone knows because everyone who is eternal remembers what she thinks she is, what she was taught to be. I do not tell him that wound, or the things that make her wound, or the foundations that she has. It is not my place to tell him.

But the Iron Bull is a smart man. He is a clever man. He sees the pieces that she lays down and he does not have all of them and he does not know the context but he is making a picture and it is in me to nudge some of those pieces into place but I do not need to because the Iron Bull has been solving the puzzles of people for many, many years.

The Iron Bull’s eye flicks around, looking for me but I am not here - not where he can see - but I am there and here and inside and everywhere at once, I am everything Compassion; I cannot be seen so easily.

The Iron Bull’s hands are steady as he holds Ellana’s hair out of her face as she retches into the dark bushes far away from the warm light of the campfire and the songs and laughter and the _forget_.

Ellana had put up a good face but I could feel it in her, fear and anxiety and _relief_ so overwhelming it swept her knees away.

She went away because she is mortal even though no one knows that, because it has been beaten into her so many times that she must be better than mortal, she is a Wolf, and she understands but her body does not.

That will change.

Ellana goes away to be sick, like Wolves do, but the Iron Bull follows and doesn’t say anything as she heaves into shadows the evidence of mortality in her.

He does not say anything as she gags, just holds her hair with good, capable hands and here is what he does not know -

In her head she thanks him and she wishes she could reach for him, too, but she does not think he will let her. She is right. Her hands would reach but he is far away.

But he is close. Closer than she thinks, than he thinks.

I know.

Because I am Compassion and it is in his foundations like it is in her foundations, even though the Qun and the Raven and the Wolf have tried to squeeze it out of them, it remains. Stubborn and strong.

They both think that it is another thing - weakness - but it is not, it is not weakness, it is me, it is them, it is growing and it is a rope that binds but not in the way they are used to thinking.

It is a hand in the dark, holding hair out of a face. It is a hand in the dark, pulling.

He hands her a cloth to wipe her face and she thanks him quietly, but does not look at him because she is ashamed of so many things even though she has worked so hard not to be. She is ashamed of the wrong things.

He looks at her, studies her, the way she studied him when she was not Ellana of the body, because they are also both curious.

He thinks _how_ , but that is the wrong three letter word.

I nudge the real one forward, _why?_

His mouth turns downwards at the edges - quick - but flattens out. I am not wrong, he concedes. I know I am not wrong.

I do not know why sometimes people with bodies place different questions over other questions. Why do questions hurt? The answers are butterflies, their wings are relief.

I test the edge of his foundations, _you know why already_.

The edges of his mouth do not move as Ellana tilts her head back towards the two moons in the velvet sky and breathes with her lips parted and her face wan and everything about her reachable. Touchable. Tangible.

She has not yet been made god in the way they use the word god, she has not been made a concept the way the word god is meant to be used.

He can reach her if he wants to. He does not, not yet.

Not the way she desires to be reached. Possessed.

Everyone wants to be possessed.

That, too, is something strange about the things with bodies. They never know who possess them and they always look for someone to posses them even when they say they do not want to be possessed.

What else is a name?

Leave him, she thinks at me as she tries to soak in the quiet stillness of the moons, tries to put herself together without her own second moon to help her. But she does not need a second moon. She is not a moon. She will never be a moon.

She is a Wolf.

I fade from the Iron Bull’s mind because Ellana understands things with bodies better than I do even though she does not understand the same way I do. Ellana is more right than she is wrong.

But the Iron Bull’s answer to the question of why is loud enough for me to hear, loud enough for me to reply _yes_.

Why does Ellana die for the things which are meant for death? Why does Ellana swallow poison she could avoid? Why does Ellana do the things which will hurt her most?

(Her answer: _Because I can. Because I choose to. Because I am able._ )

True.

(His answer: _Because she thinks it will make her better. Because she has something to atone for. Because she is dying.)_

True.

 _(Their answers, together, the puzzle piece that they do not understand:_ Because she is dying, because she has chosen to die, because she has already died, she is free. Because there are things on every side that are hunting and haunting her. Because she cannot stand to have one more ghost with her butterflies. Because she would rather suffer to save someone else than watch someone suffer for her ever again. Because when she finally - _finally_ \- dies she wants it to be worth it.)


	32. Chapter 32

Bull waits until he’s certain everyone else is asleep before he closes his own eye to follow. He breathes and it is easy to slip into sleep, and easier to alter his dream space once in it. There is no agent of the Ben-Hassrath who doesn’t know their own brains.

He stands there and he knows shit about this kind of thing but he supposes he’s some form of lucky because there is a tell-tale flicker of green at the farthest edge of the white space that he’s constructed within himself.

Compassion, here, takes the form of an almost person, green lights that shift and suggest a face, even.

“How do I call the Wolf?” Bull asks.

“You just did,” Compassion replies, voice different in the dream. More like an actual voice than dry paper.

Even as Compassion answers, Bull feels the familiar touch against the back of his head, a finger mockingly trailing along the boundaries of his mind, tapping.

He turns and the Wolf is there with all of his eyes and mass, sitting vivid black soaking in all the blankness.

“You rang?” The Wolf muses - and again, here, his voice is more _something to hear_ than something to feel. Bull doesn’t understand magic, and it isn’t his place to, but it’s something interesting that catches and snags his attention. A hang nail he knows he probably shouldn’t rip off. The Wolf’s voice is smoother than he thought it would be. Less wolf and more posh noble.

“I want to ask you a question and I want something that isn’t bullshit in return,” Bull says.

“Given that you are a Qunari and are not familiar with religion, and that I, myself, am not one for tradition, I will permit your audacity. It is familiar.” One black ear flicks back and the Wolf yawns, glittering teeth and a blacker void. “This, then. A game, similar to the _vir sulevanin._ A question for a question. This, Hissrad, you are used to, no?”

“Yes,” The Iron Bull replies, “That was your first question. Is Ellana your kid?”

The Wolf laughs without a mouth, though Bull supposes that in dreams you don’t need to have a mouth to laugh.

“I like the way you play, you play like a god. Be careful with that, there are those who would seek to educate you into knowing your betters.”

“You wouldn’t?”

Bull gets the sense that the Wolf is arching an eyebrow over one of the many, many eyes. Bull doesn’t bother to count them, there would be too many to understand. He just focuses on one pair and sticks with it.

“That is a question I will count.”

“I know.”

“And that is why I point out that I will count it, that is why I give you so much advice. I dislike your people, Qunari. I dislike most of the people of the lower world. But I have a special distaste for the Qunari in particular. But _you_ the Iron Bull, _you_ are different. I am partial to different. No, I would not seek to make you know your betters; not when it amuses me. Your disrespect, at this time, is not my concern. Later it may be, if you do not learn more of our game, but only because of who it may hurt.”

 _Ellana_ , Compassion whispers the answer, and Bull glances the spirit’s way but sees him settled on the ground, huddled up small. Flickering green shrinking against empty white. Bull watches him even as he continues to diminish away. The question is at the edge of his thoughts and the Wolf laughs, drawing his attention back.

“That is a question I will answer for free,” The Wolf says, “Compassion is a lesser spirit - noble and true, yes - but not quite developed. We are not in the dreaming, but in _your_ mind. _Your_ dream. There isn’t enough room for both he and I together. Even if I am not truly here.”

“Are you ever really anywhere?”

“As we speak I am with Ellana, asking her to explain to me how she could be so incredibly foolish and lucky at the same time. I am also with Theron asking him how he could be so short sighted. I am with Surana making plans. I am with many, many others who have called my name and offered something curious enough for me to consider worth giving my attention to,” The Wolf answers.

“But are _you_ ever really anywhere?” Bull presses.

The Wolf’s eyes push into him, digging, and then he answers, “Only when it displeases others for me to be. That is a question I will take payment for. But to answer your original question: _Ellana is mine, my da’fen, my beloved one, my heir._ But we share no flesh or origin no more than we do with anyone else who is of elvhenan.”

Bull narrows his eye, turns the words over in his head and slides that information into place. The picture clears. The book is slightly more legible. But there are events missing, details and points that he needs in order to clearly understand the miles of foreshadowing Ellana likes to speak in.

“I get two questions, now.”

“I can count, Wolf. Ask them.”

“To what purpose did you seek to call me? You want information, but you are pursuing some greater mystery.” The Wolf’s ears flick, as if throwing off a fly, “The questions you ask are only to confirm things you already know.”

“I’m not going to jump to conclusions,” Bull answers.

“No,” The Wolf muses, “You are not much for jumping at all.”

“I want to be certain about my answer before I give it,” Bull continues, “Before I use it. What is your second question?”

“I will defer using it for now,” The Wolf’s tail slides across the ground, a smooth movement of ink. “You may go first.”

“If she isn’t your kid, how did she become your heir?”

“Did you catch the scent of her blood?” The Wolf asks, “That is not a question you need to answer. I know it already. I am not surprised. Ellana waves the dirt and gore of her past into the air for all to see, for all to be shocked by even as she tries to smother it alive. She became my heir the way anyone becomes anyone’s heir. She was chosen. I chose her. That is not the real question you wanted to ask. You are making this exchange much costlier than it need be.”

 _Do not ask, you already know._ Compassion says, sounding plaintive, _You do not want to hear it from him_.

“He is right,” The Wolf says.

“In order to choose her, you had to know her, first,” Bull continues, ignoring them both, “How did you know her?”

The Wolf’s many eyes are heavy on him, and it becomes hard to focus on just two.

“A question for a question. Why do you not just ask _her_? Why do you go around her and go to me? Tell me, why do you waste both of our time?” The Wolf looms, rising onto his front legs, black swallowing white. “Let us expedite this, the Iron Bull.”

A flicker of familiar green and a strange twist at the back of his head that is dizzying, and Ellana appears, eyes wide with surprise even as she turns to the Wolf and demands to know what is happening.

Compassion groans, a flow of denial that isn’t words so much as feeling and dizzying sensations that Bull isn’t made to understand. The world tilts, the white is tainted - dulled, dirtied. Gray and black and green and mud.

“You want to know her truth,” The Wolf says, ignoring her questions, her increasingly frustrated calls to both of them. “Ask me to command her to tell you the truth. Ask me to order her to reveal herself to you. Shall I force her to spill her secrets to you? Shall I compel her to open her mouth and lay her scars at your feet? Shall I trade her truth to you, the Iron Bull?”

The Wolf turns towards her and Ellana’s eyes are wide and she is bone white underneath ghost gray and Bull lurches -

“ _No_.”

And she is gone -

The Wolf laughs.

 _She wasn’t here_ , Compassion groans, _because you are a good man and good men are hard to find but easier to break. She wasn’t here because she is nowhere like the Wolf is nowhere except for where he wishes he wasn’t, always in that same place; the dark and silent place; the repeating cycle of -_

Compassion is silenced and the green of him is wiped away from the now pristine white.

The Wolf’s eyes are deeper than black, even if they are the wrong color. A color Bull can’t - a color Bull doesn’t think he can see.

“My second question,” The Wolf whispers, “What are you thinking? What picture have you made of us?”

“She isn’t your kid but she’s your heir. She isn’t from here - your place. Not with the way she acts, not with the way she behaves,” Bull answers, mind unsteady even as he slides the pages together in their rough order, “Consent is a thing with her. More than it usually is with most people. She’s some kind of god-to-be but consent is major. She knows a lot more about manual labor than any noble I’ve ever known, and even if things are different up here, she doesn’t act like someone born to power. She wasn’t born to power. She sees no worth in her own self, she thinks of herself the way the people who are born into the lower magic-less classes of Tevinter do. Like she’s expendable. She was a slave.”

Bull looks into two eyes, colors that aren’t colors.

The Wolf smiles.

“Clever.”

Bull breathes out, and the words make some sort of sense.

“If it’s true,” The Wolf adds on and the Bull’s focus narrows in on him again. The Wolf laughs, tail swishing back and forth, “I said _question for a question_ , not _question for an answer_. I will neither confirm or deny your conclusion. That is between you and my _da’fen_.”

“And if I were to ask the question of whether I am right or not?”

“You may ask it, but I may not answer it,” The Wolf pauses, “Or I may lie.”

“I’m beginning to see why Surana curses your name,” Bull says as he feels the Wolf sliding away, eyes winking out one by one.

“Oh, that’s just the beginning,” The Wolf muses. “One last thing before I go - just a thought. What changes if you are right?”


	33. Chapter 33

Ellana is surprised by her own laughter. Dorian can see that the second the sound leaves her mouth. He doesn’t even have to look at her face to know, but he does anyway.

She laughs at something Rocky says, a sudden burst of bright, high - _young_ \- sound, and Dorian turns to it the way you always look at a new sound in an unexpected moment. One of Ellana’s hands flies to her mouth, and shock is everything in her face, and for a second it looks like she’s going to wrangle all that laughter back into something smaller. More polite. More godly. Or what Dorian assumes would be something more godly.

The elves are surprisingly familiar in their rigid castes and protocols. Familiar in ways that Dorian can understand. Expectations, passive aggressive baiting, blood sport, grudges that extend for generations -

It’s everything Tevinter raised to an absurd degree of intensity.

But Rocky continues talking and Ellana discards politeness in favor of closing her eyes and laughing some more.

Dorian looks away, quickly.

It’s almost enough to remind a man that she is - for the lack of a better word, _a person_.

It is so very easy to fall into Ellana, First of the Wolf, and everything Dorian’s puny human mind understands those words to mean. There is some hidden aspect here, that doesn’t translate well. Or perhaps, refuses to be translated.

Ellana, First of the Wolf, keeps the company of spirits and understands time-space magic. Ellana, First of the Wolf, throws herself over mandrakes and lives. Ellana, First of the Wolf, changes bodies like slippers.

But Ellana, laughing woman, is a different thing entirely.

Dorian likes Ellana, First of the Wolf. She is clever and sharp. If Dorian had been betrothed to _her_ he might have been willing to work something out. It would not be a loveless marriage, he thinks. Sexless, for the most part, yes. But loveless? No.

Ellana, First of the Wolf, is the type of person who commands you to love her with a look. Dorian has resisted, of course. He thinks everyone, to a degree, resists. But one way or another she drags you into her. And you wish you didn’t love her - this person who is the form of everything you have been raised to fear and hate. The very image of the monster underneath the bed. She is charismatic, she is charming, she is endlessly resourceful, and she knows exactly how to find her way into your mind.

But Ellana, _Ellana_ \- Ellana who is currently turning a blotchy sort of red as she leans against Grim as Dalish begins to embellish onto Rocky’s story - is an entirely different beast altogether.

Dorian would not want to marry this Ellana. Dorian wants to be as far away from this Ellana as possible because - because this Ellana seems to be made for laughing and being knocked down into the grass and opening her arms for a sunbath. This Ellana is the Ellana the carefully ran her fingers through his hair. This Ellana belongs nowhere in any sort of court.

Ellana’s eyes glitter with laughter and she turns and looks at him and calls, _Dorian_.

This Ellana does not command or ask you to love her. This Ellana is entirely oblivious to that sort of thing. This Ellana _is_ and you just _happen_ to love her anyway.

Dorian goes over to her and she raises her hand and tangles it in his as she pulls him closer into their circle and urges Rocky to start over from the beginning of what is no doubt an absolutely terrible story that involves someone losing eyebrows that is hopefully Grim.

Ellana’s fingers are warm against his skin and her shoulder bumps into his side as she sways with laughter. Moveable and blotchy with wet at her eyes from laughing, breath uneven. Not at all godly.

Dorian doesn’t know how to feel about Ellana this way. This Ellana opens up too many worlds of possibility, too many pathways to ruin.

Given that Dorian is already exiled and a secret prisoner of war of some sort - sold out by his own country in the most shameful display of self interest - he doesn’t think he wants to explore just how much farther he can fall.

Dorian’s fingers slat with hers, tentatively, and he squeezes once - quickly - before letting go. Ellana’s knuckles brush against his, seeking more, but he moves away, putting Rocky between them as he feigns swiping at Krem, “Tell me that the reason your eyebrows are uneven is because you got caught up into this nonsense.”

Ellana blinks at him, confused but Dalish tugs at her arm and whispers something into her ear and Ellana is distracted again.

“My eyebrows aren’t uneven,” Krem protests, and Dorian turns away. Safe. Safe until he can sort himself out.

The amulet is heavy underneath his tunic, not quite alive - not in the same way most things made with blood magic are. Somehow this one is -

Safer?

Calmer.

The feel of it doesn’t make Dorian recoil. It doesn’t feel _wrong_. It feels - _calm?_ It feels - _placid_.

Dorian’s mind flashes to the memory he’s been trying to avoid actively having for the past many, many, _many_ months - almost years - and there was nothing placid or calm about it.

 _I was willing_ , Compassion whispers to him and Dorian mentally snaps about how Compassion wasn’t supposed to be reading his mind.

 _I can’t help it,_ Compassion mutters like someone straightening documents or flipping through pages in a book, _You thought it. It’s like when she calls your name - easy and quick, as if she didn’t have to think about it, like your name was meant to be coming out of her mouth like morning; that scares you because your name has never been morning but mourning. And you learned to like it because one way or another you would make yourself known. Dorian Pavus of Minrathous. You have always wanted someone to say your name and mean it_. _How can you ignore that? How can I ignore you?_

Dorian swallows back a wave of - of _things_ , because he can’t just start blurting out answers to such -

He just can’t answer any of that out loud. He’d look like a lunatic for one thing.

A phantom touch along the back of his knuckles, and Dorian’s hand jerks away from it. He turns in time to see a flicker of green - not Compassion, but -

He glances up and Ellana’s eyes are glimmering with questions. His name.

He smiles at her. Ellana’s face falls, quickly, but she covers it up well.

Ellana, First of the Wolf and Dorian, Altus of Minrathous, are not people meant for names being called like sunlight.

He tells himself this as he pushes down the waves of memories.

Enjoy this, he thinks, it will not last. It never does.


	34. Chapter 34

"You look nice like this,” Bull says, _you should always be like this_ , he doesn’t say.

Ellana’s eyes catch on him, face flushed, shoulders rising and falling a little heavy as she breathes hard. Apparently, even immortal beings bred on magic and warfare can get tired if they play tag with a group of humans, dwarves, and non-immortal elves long enough.

“What?” Ellana blinks at him, honest in a way he isn’t used to from her. There is no question behind her question.

As far as the Iron Bull has seen her there has always been something behind everything.

Maybe that’s what he’s just beginning to see, here. The real Ellana. The Ellana that exists underneath even the blanched and bleached bone white of fear that seems to be the root of her every action.

This is an Ellana without fear. This is the Ellana that would be.

This is the Ellana trapped inside of stone, and there is something about being out here with them that breaks it out, piece by piece.

The Iron Bull thinks that perhaps his assessment of her is not as wrong as the Dread Wolf would have him think.

“When you smile,” Bull says as she takes a glance down at herself, as if checking her clothes for something wrong.

He sees no harm in telling her the truth.

Ellana looks nice when she smiles without thinking about it. Most people do.

“Thank you,” Ellana says, still Ellana underneath the bone as she casts a curious glance at him.

 _This is what she missed, is missing, misses_ , Compassion startles him and Ellana gives him a slightly bemused look, as if she knows what caused him to jump - probably not the words, though. He doesn’t think Ellana would be too amused to know about the things the spirit says to him. _Neither this or that, not here or there, belonging to no one and nothing - free but at what cost? It would be nice to be a Bull. Bulls are not as lonely as she thought they would be. Proud and strong and solid. It would be nice to be a Bull_.

He tries to wave Compassion away, like shaking his head in fog or swatting a persistent fly around his face.

He catches Mahariel’s eye - to be more exact, his eyes meet Mahariel’s as he stares at them from across the small stream where Ellana has been playing with the others as they all catch their breath.

Bull had somehow thought elven hunting would involve more magic than running around and doing it like a normal person.

Mahariel’s face is distant, detached, observant - everything Bull expects from one of the Wolf’s sentinels.

Underneath that, though, there is something else. Something that seems a lot like _pit_ y _,_ and has no place here.

Mahariel is not one of them. Bull can see the divides. His guys - Dorian and Varric included - are generally alright with Ellana. They have their awkward moments, but for the most part they’re all warmed up to each other. Close and constant proximity mixed with something charisma.

But Mahariel - and all the others - don’t belong to that circle.

Curiously enough, Ellana doesn’t seem to belong to the sentinel’s circle, either. He thinks about how she was entirely alone in that huge island of a glade except for the animals that seem to persistently underfoot and as willful as she is.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of this to the Qun. If he could.

Bull is not stupid enough to think that this is his chance to grab his guys and run. He is not nearly dumb enough to think that chance will ever come unless it’s given to them like some kind of trap or bait for something else. He may be stupid enough to take it - desperate enough - but he is not nearly dumb enough to think that this is it.

 _You won’t_ , Compassion says and Bull feels his jaw clench.

Ellana’s eyes flick up to him, and she turns to follow his line of sight to Mahariel. As she does that, Mahariel’s face turns loose and liquid, mouth flowing into a smile, life in his eyes as he casts a wink and a grin at her. Bull looks down in time to see her smiling back, the same real smile that makes her look good.

Ellana’s eyes turn back to him and he is, again, reminded - this is Ellana.

Underneath the Wolf, beyond the Wolf, behind the fear, beyond it - this is her. Here she is.

Questions, smiles, laughter, heaving shoulders, sweat that smells and glistens and dries like anyone else’s, bare feet that kick up dust, and dark hair that sticks to her face and neck because of the sun and water.

“I didn’t know gods get tired,” Bull says, “You would’ve caught them faster if you used your magic.

“That would be cheating,” Ellana says, sounding affronted, “Also I don’t have any.”

Bull blinks and Ellana shrugs.

“You can run out?”

“It’s not an infinite resource,” She replies, “It’s like blood. You have a lot of it, but if you cut open a vein you’re going to lose a lot of it. Granted, I have more blood than most.”

Ellana turns to look at where Skinner and Dalish have collapsed onto the ground, legs in the stream as they cool off, eyes closed. Varric, Dorian, and Stitches are playing some kind of word game next to the pack animals. Grim and Krem have fucked off somewhere for reasons. Rocky’s investigating some glowing rocks that Bull hopes aren't actually possessed and getting ready to eat his demolition’s expert.

 _Do you remember what it was like, after the Qun, before the Iron Bull’s Chargers?_ Compassion says and Bull almost turns around and swats at air like an idiot, because Compassion isn’t actually behind him, but it’s tempting to act out anyway.

There is no after the Qun.

_Do you remember?_

There is no after the Qun, there is only the Qun, Bull thinks.

He remembers.

Ellana turns and jogs over to collapse onto Dorian’s back, arm around his neck even as she loops the other around Stitches, pulling together and down under her weight as she intrudes into their game.

Bull turns back to Mahariel.

Mahariel holds eye contact before quietly, pointedly, stepping back and turning around to retreat into the forest.

He remembers.


	35. Chapter 35

"Ellana, you go to far,” Theron’s voice is careful, soft - almost familial in a way Ellana knows will never be _real_. Theron can try, Theron can even be _true_ , but at the end of it all - they both know where he must stand and it has never been on her side. Those are the rules of this world, their world, and Ellana doesn’t begrudge him for it.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ellana says, lazily attempting to catch a firefly even as Theron frowns at her back.

“Turn this hunting party back,” Theron says, “We are going too far. We are running out of time. He waits for you.”

It doesn’t begin until Ellana turns around and goes back. She knows this. She senses it.

Whatever happens next cannot begin until she returns, until she allows it.

“A little further, we have yet to catch anything,” Ellana says.

“What are you looking to catch, Ellana?” Theron asks, firm and perfectly knowing.

Time, Ellana thinks, she is looking to catch some time.

“I want to keep going,” Ellana says instead. A truth in place of a truth.

“I know you do, but you cannot. You have to turn around,” Ellana jerks, pulling her hands to her front as her shoulders stiffen.

“Do not touch me, Theron,” Ellana whispers, “I do not permit it.”

Theron lets out a measured breath.

“Wolf Ascendant, I am under orders. Do not make this harder than it already is.”

“No, Mahariel,” Ellana turns and takes in the way he retreats behind his sentinel’s gaze, his soldier’s stance, “Harder? What do you know of harder, Mahariel? _Do you even understand what waits for me?_ I’ll go back, Mahariel. But only when I’m ready.”

Something flickers behind Theron’s eyes and she remembers, vividly, _who this man is_.

“You must turn back. I am sorry, my lady, for your suffering. _But this is not about you_. You are the Wolf. You understand what that means. _You have always understood what that meant_. We all understood what would happen - _this is your duty_. Your duty to us, to all of us, is to turn around and look what you are running from in the face. You know that this is not - this is not the other places. Their rules are not the ones we, of the Wolf follow.”

Her hands curl into fists because - because -

“ _You are our god_ ,” Theron says, “ It is you responsibility to us to _do what is best for us all_. Not just for you. When the Wolf took you in, when he _chose you_ , we all knew that it would cause trouble, it would cause loss, that it would wear on us all. You knew what it meant.”

“I can’t go back,” Ellana chokes out, “I am _afraid_ , Sentinel. I am _afraid_. I don’t know if I will survive returning. _Something waits for me_. It waits for me to go back and - “

“Yes, and you know who.” The Sentinel interrupts her, voice hard and strong and resolute. “ _He waits for you_ , you felt it. I know you did. The Wolf has left the dreaming.”

Ellana did not mean the Wolf, but that is something that makes her flinch all the same. She brings her hands up to hug her arms close to her body.

“I was - don’t spoil this for me, Theron, please,” Ellana whispers.

“The Wolf has left the dreaming, Ascendant,” Theron continues. “I cannot protect you as you are, as I am. I am not you. I am not him. _I am straining beyond my limits_.”

“Even with your sister following us?”

“Yes, lady, even with my sister following us. We are both wearing thin,” Theron says. “And with the Wolf out of the dreaming, you are even more vulnerable. You must go back. I cannot protect you.”

“I did not ask you to.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ if you asked me to or not, you _need me to_.” Theron’s expression breaks back into familiarity, “Ellana. I know that you are afraid. I know that you don’t want to do this. But you have to. You have to go back. That is what it means to be Ascendant. You stand for us all. We all have things that we never want to go back to.”

“I just want to have this,” Ellana says. “Give me more time. Please. I just - please.”

“All dreams must end, Ellana, that is why they are dreams.”

“My dream has not yet even begun to start and already you seek to take it from me.”

“Not all dreams are beautiful or glorious,” Theron remarks, “Sometimes we do not even realize they are dreams before reality breaks in.”

Ellana breathes in and tries to draw on something, anything, for more time.

“He wanted me to have this.”

“I know,” Theron says, “And you have it, but it is not infinite. You have to go back. The Crafter’s ceremony comes close. You have to be made ready for it. There is so much you have to do, that we all have to prepare for. You are right. Something waits to happen and your return is the start of it. But what that is we do not know other than it is something that must be faced. You are the Wolf’s Ascendant. Did you think you could hide behind his protection forever? _You must learn to face that which hunts your tail_.”

Ellana squeezes her nails into her palms.

“You don’t understand, you will never understand. He - they - will be waiting for me. They know me, Mahariel. They know me better than anyone in this world. _They made me_. How can I face them? _How can I face them?_ ”

“You are right, Ascendant. I do not know. I will never understand. I was traded to the Wolf as a failed experiment of the Hearth Keeper for some land and a secret or two. And before that I was grown by the Huntress. I do not know what it is like to be invested in. I do not know what it is like to be honed so finely and then cast aside so coldly. But lady, you forget. _You are no longer what they made you_. You are the Wolf. You must begin to act like it - or did you plan for the Wolf to become a coward in hiding?”

Ellana flinches.

“Perhaps Surana was right. I should have brought your sister instead of you. I always forgot that you were the more cruel one.”

Theron’s mouth is a gentle slope of a smile.

“But that is also why you like me more.”

“Yes,” Ellana shrinks down, “That is why I prefer you over her.”

She meets Theron’s eyes.

“I will go back. I know - I know that I have to. I understand. I know what my role, here, is. But - not yet. We will make it back in time, but for now - let me have this. Let me take it, Theron. This will be all that I have left.”


	36. Chapter 36

“Since when did you two get so close?”

Dalish startles, heart slamming into her chest as she swears, “ _Aclassi.”_

It is strange, seeing Krem and the others in the clothes of the immortal ones. Even looking down  at herself, sometimes Dalish is stunned into silence when she realizes the things she has done, is doing. Is.

It isn’t that these things are lost, not exactly. The elves of the lower kingdoms - the elves in exile, the elves who ran, the elves who were lost or abandoned, the elves born there as time began to chip away and run them down - they are not ignorant of the ways of the pantheon, of _Elvhenan_. But it is hard - convoluted.

Times change, people change, things change, and every time a new clan is formed, every time fresh blood comes from the eternal skies, everything shifts. More colors added to an already crowded palette.

Every god manages their people differently, and it becomes increasingly hard to reconcile such differences without proper guidance.

Dalish never imagined herself - anyone - in this world. The eternal one.

But here she stands, the braids and knots of the Wolf’s _vir asha_ in her hair, her dress and thick leather hose fine and styled in ways that her, and all the other clans, have sought to capture and preserve with the materials they had.

And the words - the diction, the patterns of speech, the dialects -

The history.

Dalish has a hard time reconciling that this, the entirety - or at least a taste of it - has been given to her. Not only that, but Dalish is -

She walks alongside a god.

She walks in the path of the Wolf.

She is beyond every dream and prayer.

Dalish can’t even begin to imagine how Skinner must feel. And to be honest - Dalish is afraid to ask.

And then there is Krem - who speaks in the tongue of the Wolf and the People and speaks it well. The Chief and Stitches and Varric and Pavus, even Rocky and Grim have learned enough to hold enough of a conversation. Dalish is sometimes incredibly jarred when she looks at them, dressed in the clothes of the elves, speaking in their language -

There are, of course, things lost in translation.

They may speak the language, but they have not yet learned to live it. To sing it.

And still - still -

These are parts of her home that she never thought would be reconciled. Both of them are things that are not hers to claim.

(Ellana’s voice pushes through urgent and powerful and demanding, _claim them_.)

Krem shrugs his shoulders, loosely folding his arms as he leans against the side of a thick tree - Dalish isn’t even sure what species it is. It’s massive. Older than anything she’s ever thought possible for a tree.

She supposes that there aren’t many occasions for people to go about cutting down trees int the Wolf’s forest, though.

“Something you aren’t sharing with the class, Dalish?” Krem asks.

“I don’t know what you mean, Aclassi. We talk. We share stories - she shares stories. It’s like lessons and such,” Dalish says, brushing off her knees as she rises up, mushrooms held in the folds of her skirts as she nudges them into place and knots the skirt off at her hip.

“I heard you call her _sister_ ,” Krem says, “Do all of you call your gods sister?”

Dalish purses her lips, glares at him.

He holds up his hands, “I’m just _saying_. Anyway - I just wanted to ask, do you know what’s going on?”

Dalish raises an eyebrow, “You’ll have to be clearer about that, Aclassi. Given the situation we’re in, that’s a vague question. I would say we’re currently in the middle of a hunting trip.”

“I think most of us know that something about this trip is a little off,” Krem says, “I mean. I won’t say no to a chance to actually do something. I’d rather not get old and fat so soon. But I don’t think this little trip is to run us through our paces and let us stretch our legs. That’s not how this whole _politics_ thing works.”

Dalish looks into Krem’s face and feels the two edges of the impossible things she holds start to tug at her.

Before, before all of this, she had thought that these two things were reconcilable. As a Charger, as an exile, as one of the elves under the quickening, as a member of the Inquisition, she would never have to deal with her gods clashing with her family.

But here, standing with the Wolf on one side and the Chargers on the other -

Her heart pounds in her chest. The First of the Wolf’s voice commands her to choose the Chargers, even says that she would understand. And Dalish knows.

_The First of the Wolf lost her Chargers to a hecatomb._

“I don’t know the details,” Dalish admits, hand fisted into the perfect dream of her skirt, “But I do know that the ceremony for the Crafter approaches. Ellana - Ellana has a history with the Crafter. It is - it hurts her.”

It will always hurt her.

Dalish imagines losing Skinner, Rocky, Stitches, Grim, Krem, the Chief - all of them, any of them, the way Ellana lost her entire clan.

Lost her pair.

She shudders and Krem’s eyes are sharp and warm when he steps close, hands on her shoulders as he squeezes, and Dalish rocks her head forward onto his chest and breathes him in. Alive and human and distinctly not gone.

His arms are hot as they circle around her, drawing her close.

“I’m not asking you to choose,” Krem says, voice low. “None of us would ever ask you to choose between your gods and us. But we just want you to know that we are here for you. Whatever it is that the Ascendant is about to lead us into, whatever it is that you _think_ she’s going to bring us into; we just want to know so we can stand with you, Dalish. That’s what we do. We’re family.”

“Lethallin,” Dalish croaks out the word, curling her fists into his back as she presses her face against his hot neck. “Lethallin.”

Krem nods.

He doesn’t understand the word. That’s alright. She said it. She claimed it.

(There are things that are lost in translation.

For example - the word Dalish and Ellana use is not _sister_.

The closest word would be _comrade,_ in the pattern of the _vir asha_. It sounds like sister, because almost all the words in the _vir asha_ are female.

It means something deeper than that, though. It means something deeper than the word comrade, in the common tongue of the lower lands.)

Dalish closes her eyes and lets herself borrow some of Krem’s steady confidence.

It means, Dalish thinks as she breathes him in, _the one who suffers with me._


	37. Chapter 37

Her hand, in his, doesn’t _feel_ any different from a normal person’s hand. Five fingers. One palm. A wrist. A pulse.

Stitches holds her pale hand between his, and can’t quite understand how this is the hand of a living, breathing _god_.

Or _someday_ god.

Her blood is just as red as anyone else’s, as he picks out pieces of pebble and dirt from the scrape along the heel of her palm. Ellana’s fingers twitch but she holds still.

Grim lurks around the edges before fading away. Stitches thinks he’s just as curious as to what color gods bleed as everyone else, he’s just more subtle about it.

Rocky and Pavus were last seen examining the rocks Ellana fell onto, as if they haven’t seen her bleed before.

The Chief has, probably, given that he sees more of her than anyone else.

Five fingers, one palm, a wrist and a pulse. A normal hand. It doesn’t look special, aside from how - how unfamiliar it is.

Ellana’s hand is long, tapered, slender - almost grass or insect like in how strangely elegant it is. But it isn’t the hand of a noble. Stitches knows the hands of nobles and the rich. They aren’t like this. Ellana’s nails are cut close to match the curve of her fingertips, and the palms of her hands and the pads of her fingers have hard places. Callouses. These are the hands of someone who works and continues to work. They aren’t soft or softening.

“Your pardon, lady,” Stitches says, “Normally I tell stories at this part of the thing. It’s a boring process. I’m wondering why you don’t just fix it with magic, myself, to be honest. Probably faster than this.”

“The Wolf forbids the use of magic for small things,” Ellana replies, “If you use magic on every little thing then it isn’t really magic, anymore, is it? You’re helpless.”

“A fine point,” Stitches says, “But one I’m surprised anyone up here had the sense to make.”

Ellana laughs. It’s easy to forget who she is, _what_ she is, when she laughs like that. Stitches thinks that maybe if half the nobles had a single ounce of her sort of charisma things wouldn’t be so damn awful.

“You learn things if you do them the proper way,” Ellana says, “Tell me your stories, Stitches. I would love to hear them. You tend to listen more than you tell when we gather ‘round the fire at night. Or chatter amongst ourselves like birds during the day, scaring off game and such.”

Stitches glances up and Ellana is leaning towards him, sincere and earnest with her large eyes. This close Stitches can see every way she _isn’t_ just some girl, some normal woman who scraped her hand during a tumble.

Ellana’s eyes - it’s all in her eyes. There are these strange flecks and shimmers of almost green in them. Moving. It’s not like the hazel kind of color in Aclassi’s eyes, or the way Sera’s eyes kind of shifted depending on what light she was in. This is a different sort of thing. A god sort of thing.

The light in her eyes _moves_ , it undulates, it winks in and out of existence, shifting around the iris of her deep pupils. It’s like the lights themselves are alive.

Like it’s separate from her.

“I’m not sure my stories would be so exciting, lady,” Stitches says, rewetting the cloth he’d been using to clean around the edges of her raw palm.

“Why?” Ellana tilts her head. “Tell me about yourself, Stitches. I want to know you.”

“Not much to tell, lady,” Stitches focuses on the palm of her hand. “I’m just an army medic who picked up a few things here and there, nothing special.”

“But you heal people,” Ellana says, “Without magic. You can heal sickness and broken bones and scrapes and all sorts of other wounds. That’s amazing. _You_ are amazing. You know so much - plants and healing, medicines and diseases and cures and all sorts of things like that. I don’t know any of it - I’m a terrible healer with magic, and I’m barely passable without it.”

Ellana’s voice softens, “It’s so much easier to tear things apart than to put them together again. They never taught us that second part. It was easier if we didn’t know, I think.”

Stitches doesn’t look up, but he hopes his hand, his grip, is soft enough on hers that she knows she can keep talking.

“We’re nothing, you know,” Ellana says, “That’s what they teach us. We are nothing. We know nothing. Whatever we know, whatever we become, those are gifts given to us by those above us. And they really only teach you one or two things, and they expect you to know it well. You all - everyone comes together in little pieces. We’re all so good at the things we do but we don’t know how to do anything else.”

“Like a puzzle,” Stitches muses.

“Yes, we make such a lovely picture put together,” Ellana’s fingers curl a little, straightening out again, “But apart we’re useless. Humans - a lot of you, dwarves and humans and Qunari and even the quickened elves. You aren’t like that. Even if you take away one thing you can still keep going. On and on and on and forever. You don’t need anyone else.”

“Untrue,” Stitches laughs, “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the Chief. And none of us would be here if it weren’t for the Inquisition. And the Inquisition wouldn’t be anything without all the people backing it. And of course - you did just save us from a screaming plant a few days ago.”

Ellana snorts, “You give yourself too little credit, Stitches. Army medic, you said? I doubt you survived all the shemlen wars by yourself. Tell me - where did you go? Where did you fight?”

“Here and there, miss,” Stitches says, careful with his words, “A lot of running during the latest Blight, though. Not sure if you’d recall - about ten years back the Fifth Blight started in Ferelden.”

“Yes, the Blight,” Ellana muses, “I remember that. Are you alright, Stitches? Does it hurt to speak of it? We can talk of anything else, if you wish.”

“It isn’t - it wasn’t a terrible thing for me to talk about, but yes. I’d prefer it. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t. There are other things I would love to talk about with you,” Ellana says, gentle. “Have you ever seen the sea?”

“Yes,” Stitches says, “Crossed it a few times going back and forth from place to place. Terrible, half of us get sea sick and guess who deals with that nonsense?”

Ellana laughs, “Will you tell me about it? The sea?”

Stitches glances up at her as he starts to apply some ointment to the scrapes, “The sea?”

“I’ve never been before,” Ellana says, “I’ve seen it in pictures and in dreams, but I’ve never been in person. Will you tell me about it? The sea?”

Stitches stares at her, dumbfounded.

Ellana, First of the Wolf, god to be, has never seen the sea.

Ellana’s eyes stare into him before she smiles, nervously.

“I don’t - I’ve been to the lower lands a few times, but it was never near the sea,” She says, bashful. “Is it a stupid question? I - it just seems like a lot of water, really. Water one can’t drink. I can’t imagine that. Water you can’t drink.”

“You could drink it if you really wanted to, lady,” Stitches says, “The salt would just make you sick. You really haven’t been? I - I suppose there are a lot of people who never see it, I just. I didn’t think that you - “

Ellana shrugs, rueful twist to her mouth, “Never mind - if it’s a silly question, I was just curious.”

“It isn’t a silly question,” Stitches is quick to reply. “Let me think about it. I don’t really - I’m not so good with words, lady, is what I’m trying to get at here.”

“That’s alright,” Ellana says, smiling and moving to touch his arm with her already bandaged hand - he has to remember to ask her if she needs help with it, later, if there’s anything under it that needs treatment - , “You have kind hands.”

He feels himself smiling back at her.

It’s probably stupid and ten sorts of fool of him to think so, but the lady Wolf is a gentle girl. And he thinks he feels a little sorry for her.


	38. Chapter 38

“Dalish,” Krem’s voice is as calm and steady as the pulse she feels through their joined palms, “I want you to listen to me very closely, alright? Don’t say anything, don’t think anything, just listen. You don’t need to answer or say anything.”

Dalish nods, head against his shoulder as she soaks in the loud silence of the ancient trees covering them. She’s certain that by now one of the others has started to question why it’s taking her so long to gather things to eat.

The Wolf’s land is bountiful, for all that it has its own areas of danger and scarcity.

(“Is that - _is that red lyrium_?” Varric’s voice goes higher than Dalish has ever heard it go before. Ellana and Theron’s heads both jerk in his direction, their eyes scanning the area before landing on the obtrusive jut of bright red. Dalish recoils from in - how did they not sense it? Feel it?

“Yes,” Ellana replies, frowning at it before turning to Theron, “We will have to mark this place, later. When was the last time a sweep was done of this area?”

“Too long ago, I should think,” Theron says, “It looks like it’s taken hold. The Wolf will be most annoyed. Will you break the news to him or shall I? I admit, I’m hoping you will because he’s infinitely fonder of you than me.”

“This is a normal thing?” The Chief asks, incredulous.

“To be incredibly frank with you,” Ellana says as she turns away and continues walking, “I’m surprised that the lower lands only _just_ started noticing it within the past half decade or so. It’s older than most of your empires.”)

“Pavus has an idea,” Krem begins, fingers steady and warm as he squeezes her hand in his, gently, “He thinks that he can get a message to Skyhold.”

Dalish’s heart kicks in her chest and she draws in a sharp breath that kicks all the way down.

“It’s just a theory right now,” Krem continues, “And it would have to be small. Short. He thinks that with enough practice he can replicate the thing he did with you and the Sentinel earlier.”

“But we were only able to do that because we had one of _them_ ,” Dalish says, squeeze Krem’s hand in hers as she stares into the echoing forest, “That kind of power - “

“It’s a theory, Dalish,” Krem cuts in, “Just listen, alright? He hasn’t gotten the details completely sorted yet. And I haven’t told anyone else. It’s just Pavus, the Chief, me, and now you, so far. We don’t want to give the others hope.”

In case Pavus fails. In case it isn't possible. In case -

“Regardless, he’s going to need you if we go through with this,” Krem says.

“Is that why you followed me out here? Asked me about the First of the Wolf?”

“I asked because I’m concerned for you,” Krem’s voice is even, composed in ways Dalish is incredibly envious of. “Because I know how much all of this means to you. Because I know that this is everything you’ve always dreamed of and it’s probably frustratingly difficult for all of it to be so convoluted and fucked up. But yeah, the Chief did want me to tell you ‘bout Pavus’ idea. Not _ask_ you, mind.”

Krem turns his head and his jaw gently buts against the top of her head.

“Dalish, you’re our family. If you don’t want to do it, if you don’t think you can or if you just don’t want to, it stops here. We understand. These may be the people we’re hired on with under duress, but to you they’re your gods. Your ancestors. If the Maker himself came down and grabbed me and put me in a similar situation I’m pretty sure that I’d be conflicted, too.”

“But - “

“No, Dalish,” Krem’s hand tightens around her own, breath warm against the crown of her head, “There is no _but_. It’s a long shot, we don't even know what we’d say. We don’t know if the message would make it or if anyone would even believe it or if it’d do any good. It’s just something that is _possible,_ something to consider. You don’t have to tell me yes or no. And if you don't want to that’s the end of it.”

“That’s not how it works,” Dalish says.

“Says who? Because I say that’s how it works. The Chief says that’s how it works. I bet you Skinner would say the same. And Rocky. And Stitches. And Grim if that grunting fuck ever said anything.”

Dalish’s stomach twists into knots.

So many things. So many desires. So many dreams.

Krem’s lips brush her forehead, Dalish turns and nuzzles her cheek against his shoulder. He lets go of her hand to move his arm around her, squeezing her close to his side.

“Whatever you choose, Dalish,” Krem says, “Remember that. I’m with you. The Chargers are with you.”

“And the rest of Thedas?”

“Fuck’m up the ass,” Krem replies, like it’s that easy. “Half of it sold us into this mess. At this point it’s us for ourselves.”

 _Claim them_ , Ellana had said. Claim them, Dalish’s breath burns into her tongue.

“What would I have to do?” She asks.

Krem’s fingers tighten on her arm, thumb running over her skin.

“I don’t know, I’m no expert on magic. I suppose whatever it was you were doing before. Like I said, Pavus doesn’t have specifics.”

“Who would you send the message to?”

“Inquisitor Trevelyan, probably. I don’t know. Whoever would believe that we aren’t dead.”

Dalish squeezes her hands together, the stark lines of her _vallaslin_ curving over her white knuckles and disappearing under the leather of her bracers - so finely stitched and warm with the soft touch of magic.

“I won’t say no,” Dalish says. “But I can’t say yes. I - I think I’d need to know more.”

“Alright,” Krem says. “If that’s what you want. I’ll tell that to the Chief.”

“Krem?”

“Yeah, Dalish?”

“Why did the Chief send you?”

Krem’s hand pauses in the middle of idly rubbing up and down her arm.

“Is it because he knew you’re better with us than he is?”

“Define better,” Krem says then shakes his head. “No. He’s trying to keep his eyes on the wolves. They’re driving him right mad. I don’t think he wanted to leave the others behind with them for too long. And I think - I think he was worried about you.”

“Me?”

Krem’s other hand touches her clenched fingers.

“I think,” Krem says, “Mind you, I’m no mind reader, but I think that he was worried about you. I think that with all of this, he’s worried about what you think of him. And what he thinks of you. You’re one of us, Dalish, you’re a Charger. The Iron Bull’s charger. No matter what you are or were, what you have or haven’t said, you’re still family. But I think he’s worried that you’re afraid of him, now. And what he thinks of you.”

Dalish swallows, the back of her neck and tips of her ears burning with truth.

“He wanted you to have as unbiased answer as possible,” Krem continues. “And if he came here being _all himself_ with you being _yourself_ and he told you about this, I think he was scared you’d do something you’d regret.”

Krem is right.

Dalish’s chest curls up tight with shame and warmth. Ellana’s voice, again, _he is a good man_.

For him - for him Dalish would say yes in a heartbeat. Dalish would say yes before a full explanation ever left his mouth. For him Dalish would say yes if he were to just look at her with half a question in his eyes.

The Iron Bull doesn’t want that kind of unwavering obedience.

(He is like Ellana, Dalish thinks. Neither the Iron Bull nor the Wolf Ascendant particularly care for the devotion of the people they tame like wild things, half feral in the dark.)

“Will you tell him that I’m sorry,” Dalish manages to get out, “And that I’m trying?”

Neither will be anything he wants to hear.

 _Sorry for what?_ His voice asks in her head, _I don’t know what you’re supposed to be sorry for. For being you? Be you._

“Alright,” Krem says, just as soft. “I’ll tell him.”


	39. Chapter 39

“This is a surprise,” Varric says to the Iron Bull, still rattled by the discovery of earlier. “How do they even _have_ lyrium up here? Do they use it?”

“Never seen them use it,” Bull muses, “How does the damn blight even get up here?”

“You’re the one attached to her side at almost all hours of the day,” Varric points out, “Ask her.”

Varric was the one who brought the red shit to the surface, him and his idiot brother. That was the first. That was when everything got shot to hell and back.

 _Ellana says that red lyrium has been around forever_.

Ellana, and Theron, are not surprised or fazed or particularly perturbed by the red lyrium’s surprising appearance in the forest. The most reaction they had to it was annoyance, like finding the cat’s gotten into the cream or that someone left out an open jar of honey and its got flies.

Varric didn’t think he’d ever consider a day when red lyrium was considered a minor inconvenience at best.

It makes him wonder, in a sort of morbid way, what they _would_ consider a problem.

Aside from killing, screaming plants of course. Varric is somehow unsurprised by that part. He always knew that the great outdoors would be the end of his city dwarf life.

“It didn’t whisper,” Bull says, contemplative and outwardly relaxed, “The lyrium. It always had one hell of a nasty feeling to it. And even us normal people could kind of hear it.”

“And yet we didn’t notice a huge chunk of it coming out of the ground until we were practically on top of it,” Varric’s stomach curdles, _curdles_ , at that. Have they just been walking over miles and miles of red lyrium without noticing it? “Maybe that’s why everything is going so well. We’ve all gone crazy.”

Bull snorts, “Too easy. Probably something about this place.”

“Any ideas on what that something is, Tiny?”

“Some,” Bull replies cryptically. Varric rolls his eyes and Bull glances down at him, shrugs a shoulder. “Everything up here is taken to an extreme. Magic, spirits, politics. Maybe we didn’t notice because we’re getting used to that level of bullshit.”

“As terrible as that sounds, it’s actually plausible,” Varric says after a few moments of thinking it over. “So basically, this place is like the Kirkwall of elves?”

Bull actually laughs at that, “Is Kirkwall just your measuring stick for everything?”

“Damn straight it is,” Varric says. “Have you seen that shit hole? I mean, it’s _my_ shit hole, but it is _the_ shit hole of Thedas.”

“What does that make Val Royeaux?”

“The piss hole, probably,” Varric replies, and then on an unrelated topic, “What do you think, Tiny?”

“Gonna have to be a bit more specific, dwarf,” Bull says amicably, “I know I don’t look it, but I actually think about a lot of things.”

Varric gestures ahead to where Ellana is calmly walking on her own, one arm awkwardly held at her side. She’s hurt. Varric isn’t sure if it was when she fell down earlier or if it’s something that happened before. The arm is always covered in bandages, but she’s never shown it to be hurt or anything. Varric was half wondering if it was an aesthetic choice.

He thinks that she isn’t used to pretending it isn’t hurt. At least, not constantly. But there’s a stiffness to the movement of it, and it doesn’t quite move the way people’s hands do when they walk. She’s aware of it.

Ellana, Varric thinks, may be used to be watched at all times but she isn’t quite used to enjoying the people who watches her. That kind of thing makes it a thousand times harder to keep up pretenses.

Varric knows.

Ellana reminds him of people he left behind. Ellana, he realizes with a strange and uncomfortable sort of clarify, reminds him of a specific person he left behind.

The parallels between the two are getting clearer and clearer with every page he writes and reads in his head. And where those parallels come from and lead off to are both equally unpleasant.

Varric has had enough with the people he gets close to and their suffering to last a lifetime and beyond. He wonders if there’s something about himself that just attracts people with broken pasts like rotting fruit and flies.

“That,” Bull says after a pause; when Varric looks up the man has a strange light in his eye, contemplative, interested, curious, and strangely alive and alert in the ways Varric associates with fights, the good kinds not the life-ending ones; the man’s lip curls upward briefly and Varric wonders if he’s aware of that, “Isn’t yours to worry about.”

“It’s yours?”

Bull’s teeth flash and he puts his hands in his pockets, amicable as he hums, “It would look that way, yeah.”

“I don’t know if you’re in over your head or not,” Varric says. Because if Ellana is anything like the lines drawn in his head, the books he’s already read and written, this will be ugly. This will be private and a lot like dragging someone over broken glass that’s been covered in salt.

“To be fair my head is pretty high off the ground,” Bull shrugs, “And since when did we get choices about things like that?”

The man cants a knowing look in Varric’s direction. Varric thinks that once upon a time he’d have been more worried about a Qunari spy knowing him so well, reading him so accurately. But the Iron Bull has more than proven himself reliable. Even before this, Varric’s read on him was that he was a good guy, that he could be trusted. That’s just gotten strong with time and exposure.

The Inquisition lucked out with this guy, and now - he supposes - Ellana has.

Then again, when Varric remembers the dragging of old and fresh wounds into the light, maybe she hasn’t.

The Iron Bull isn’t like Hawke, but there’s that same vicious quality of bravery in them both.

“Did you choose?” The Iron Bull asks, almost playfully.

“I made terrible choices, Tiny,” Varric replies, “Wouldn’t trade’m for all the gold in the world.”


	40. Chapter 40

Dorian supposes that after the myriad of surprises he’s witnessed over the many months living in the Wolf’s temple, let alone these past few days, he should be unsurprised to find Ellana naked in the stream.

“Do gods catch colds?” Dorian asks.

Ellana blinks at him, the arm she normally bandages angled away from his line of sight, but otherwise completely at ease with her nudity. Dorian wonders if it’s pride or indifference. He’s fairly certain which one it would be if it were him in this situation, but Ellana is not him. Ellana plays a similar game but it is not the same game, and Ellana’s approach to it is much riskier than Dorian’s altogether.

She gestures her head upstream and Dorian can pick out the faintest traces of a heating sigil.

“Clever,” Dorian says, eyes focused on her face and he catches the slight upturn of her mouth even as the tips of his ears heat just a little. “Do gods always bathe so carelessly? Or is that just a product of familiar territory?”

The curve of her lip grows into a wider and easier to label smile and she tilts her head towards the shorter trees - in comparison to the veritable _giants_ of the rest of the forest - and when Dorian focuses on those he senses the Sentinel. The man’s aura is peaceful, if a little amused, and mostly relaxed.

“I thought it would be the Iron Bull,” Ellana says when Dorian brings his focus back to her.

“I know,” Dorian says and one of her eyebrows raises. “I wanted to get to you before he did. I wanted to make sure I could get some of my questions in before he ruined you.”

“Ruined me?” Ellana blinks and tilts her head.

“You two make each other far too raw for anyone’s civilized taste,” Dorian replies, raising his own eyebrow as Ellana stares at him. “Did you think I didn’t notice, my lady? This sort of game is almost universal.”

“This sort?”

Dorian waves a hand and Ellana looks away to continue her ablutions.

“You’re the one who wanted to find me, Dorian, why don’t you come closer?” Ellana laughs, “Afraid of the wolf?”

“More afraid of crossing a woman in a certain state of undress,” Dorian replies but moves closer and sits himself next to her clothes. “I have questions for you, if you’d allow me to pick your brain. As they say.”

Ellana lets out a soft snort.

“You can ask Varric, it’s a real expression. I’m sure that among our merry band of misfits there’s at least one of us who could hazard a guess at its origins, if you’d like to question them about it.”

“I’ll take your word for it, Dorian,” Ellana says. “Ask your questions. You know you’re my favorite.”

“I do love to hear it,” Dorian says, “And you’re _my_ favorite. That being said, how’s your arm?”

Ellana holds out her left hand, “It was just a few scrapes, Dorian. I’m sure even you, pampered as your ere, had some of those.”

“Hilarious, I meant the other one. Did Stitches take a look at that one, too?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the other one,” Ellana says, continuing to angle her body away from him so that he can’t see it.

“It’s always in bandages, Ellana, and knowing you I hardly think that’s a fashion statement,” Dorian idly tugs at some unfathomably perfect and dewey grass between his legs. He swears that everything he looks at, sees, hell - takes a piss on - has its own aura here. It’s as if someone took all the energy in the world and liquified it, then dumped it on this place. “It’s been moving quite stiffly.”

Ellana casually turns and holds her right arm up towards him.

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Because I like to think you’re fond of me, and because I want to be polite and civil to the immortal woman who could literally have me turned into an actual smear on this earth with one word if what I understand about the magic of the immortal elves is to be true, I won’t cast dispel on that illusion your Sentinel so kindly put up for you,” Dorian says, careful to keep his voice even and just on the correct side of light hearted.

“And that is why you’re my favorite,” Ellana says, “Your concern is unnecessary. As I said, there is nothing wrong with my right arm.”

“That I need to know about.”

Ellana tilts her head.

“Ask your real questions, Dorian. Or shall we _talk_?”

Dorian breathes out, “Let’s not be too hasty there, my dear. I’d rather avoid you razing me to the ground so soon. We’re having such a lovely walk in the woods and all.”

Ellana laughs and it sounds eerily like the sound he would imagine _bark_ would make if it could laugh.

“Earlier, when we saw the red lyrium,” Dorian says, “You said something to your Sentinel. That it’s older than most of our civilizations.”

“Yes,” Ellana replies.

“But it was only just discovered within the past decade,” Dorian says, “If it truly has been around for that long, if it is truly that old - and as common as you and Mahariel seem to think it is - _why_ haven’t we seen more of it? _Why_ hasn’t it been a bigger deal, as it were?”

Ellana shrugs, runs a hand through her hair and starts to scrub at her scalp, “Toss me my soap.”

Dorian reaches into her leather satchel and throws the small wax-wrapped lump at her. Ellana catches it and begins to create a lather for her hair.

“Red lyrium has been around as long as the Blight has,” Ellana says, “I don’t know _why_ your people haven’t realized that or noticed it sooner. I couldn’t possibly begin to tell you that.”

Dorian’s mind scrambles to understand.

“What does the Blight have to do with red lyrium?” Dorian blinks. “The two are related?”

Ellana casts a look at him under her bent arm as she lowers her head closer to the water.

“Blighted lyrium is red lyrium,” Ellana says simply, turning her face down and closing her eyes as she starts to work the lather into her hair.

And there is the revelation Dorian was waiting for.

“Maker’s - “ Dorian’s leg bounces up and down before he stands up and starts to pace. The Blight only affects living things, which would imply that lyrium is a living thing. But it’s a mineral, granted it _grows_ and that it has some sort of magical properties that influence people and - as seen in the Red Templar’s case, _biology_ of people - but still. Lyrium as a living thing? A creature capable of disease and infection? That’s -

But -

Dorian comes to a stop and looks up, turning to her so fast that his head gets a little light.

“Why is the Blight up here?” Dorian asks, “The Blight is - the Blight, if scripture is to be believed, was done when the Magisters of old broke into the Black City. Punishment from the Maker.”

Ellana doesn’t answer, doesn’t say a word or even indicate that she’s heard him.

“Ellana,” Dorian turns to face her fully, “Why is there red lyrium here? _How_ would the Blight have even gotten here? Your cities - they float. They’re somehow above all of us. That’s why you all call the rest of Thedas the lower realms, the lower kingdoms. I haven’t actually seen any edges of your floating cities, but I know we’re much higher up than we should be. _How did the Blight reach you_?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Because you don’t have an answer?”

“Because it has been forbidden for any elf - immortal or no - to reveal to any creature of the lower realm - be it human, dwarf, Qunari, quickened elf, dog, rabbit, dragon, _nug_ \- the nature of the Blight,” Ellana replies.

“Since when did you care about what is and isn’t forbidden?” Dorian demands.

Ellana looks up at him, holding her dark hair out of her eyes with one hand, very still in the water. And for all that Dorian, logically, senses that her magic is drained - even after the days that have passed since the mandrake - he knows that she could have him gravely injured or dead within moments.

“In your eyes, Dorian Pavus,” Ellana says, “Does it look like I throw away my life so easily and without reason?”

Ellana slowly stands, tossing her hair over her shoulder, feet planted in the water, body bold and daring something - _anything_ \- to do something to her.

“I will risk my life for _yours_ Dorian, for the Iron Bull’s, for any of them if I need to. To keep you alive. But I will not waste it to fill the gaps of your knowledge. It is not my responsibility to catch your entire race up to our standards. I, too, have goals, Dorian. I, too, have something to live for. At times I may weigh the risk of protecting my household equal to that of my goal, but your curiosity - their curiosity, _anyone’s_ curiosity - is not enough to make me put aside my own ambitions.”

Ellana’s voice cracks, not like lightning or the familiar touch of a heart or nerve. It cracks like the large, massive blocks of ice Dorian once saw when he was on one of his research trips towards the Anderfels. The sound wasn’t so much a sound but something felt in the bones of the ears.

“My ambition, Dorian Pavus,” Ellana continues, “Will always win.”

She raises her right arm and points to where Mahariel is - no longer relaxed, but tense, mana a strange and tight coil of emotions that Dorian can’t quite pick up. He isn’t familiar enough with the man to name the feeling he reads off of him.

“I cannot tell you, Dorian, because if Mahariel even has the slightest doubt that I may say something about the Blight’s nature to you, he will put an arrow between my eyes before I can even draw breath.”

Dorian stares into the eyes of the Wolf to be. A wolf, certainly.

This is a familiar game.

“You are the heir of his god. You are to be his god.”

“But I am not,” Ellana says, “Not yet. At this moment, in this circumstance, I am an elf as he is. And we are all forbidden to speak of the Blight. Mahariel would strike me down now, and the most the Wolf could do was mourn me and my foolishness. And even if he would protest, the others of the pantheon would support Mahariel’s judgement. All of them. Even the ones who currently call the Wolf their ally.”

Ellana lowers her hand, eyes deep like ice as they watch each other.

“Is that the last of your questions?”

Dorian hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface.

But Dorian knows how this game goes. This, _this_ , Dorian is familiar with.

“I suppose that the Iron Bull isn’t the only one to leave you raw,” Dorian says.

Ellana’s teeth are on display but they do not smile.

“Don’t worry,” She says, “You are still my favorite.”


	41. Chapter 41

Almost seven days, almost seven entire moons since the mandrake that now rests - silenced and settled and asleep once more - wrapped in water-tight leather in Ellana’s bag. Seven days of feeling herself slowly shrinking and diminishing, fading, failing fast. Seven days of feeling numb and hollow and light-headed with absence. Seven days of feeling her body begin to fail her as her mind slid from extremes.

Seven days of complete and total deaf-blind weightlessness without her magic.

Her wrist feels like glass, with every twitch of her fingers and throb of her blood through her pulse it feels like her bones are sharp and grating things, grinding together over her over exposed nerves. The scar of the Wolf’s veins flowing into her sleeps almost entirely dormant. The skin blackened and shriveled almost within the same hour as she reconstructed herself.

Such is the price she pays for godhood.

But seven days later, her hahren takes pity on her - or perhaps grants her one more gift - and he allows a small trickle of power to flow to her when they both know that it is a wild and reckless thing to give her so freely.

Ellana jolts in the middle of relieving herself away from camp when she feels the scar blearily blink itself awake, and she feels the not-quite-electric _zing_ of energy slip through and lubricate the glass of her bones. It is nothing like her own normal, but it is more than she has had to work with in the past suns and moons.

She feels the smile bloom upon her face as she quickly stands and _shakes_.

Ellana knows exactly what she wants to do with this little treat, this morsel. She knows exactly what she wants to do with her time with the people she is rapidly growing to understand and see and _want_ more and more as they race rapidly towards the end.

This is a hunt, and Theron is right. What have they caught?

Ellana wants to hunt. Ellana wants to catch.

Ellana, for once, wants to pursue and catch and claim.

Ellana wants to feel the wolf once more, rather than the woman.

To this effect, Ellana stands and breathes, tilting her head back to let in the cold air and draw in the ambient energy around her. And then she sheds her skin.

She rolls her shoulders and feels the body of Ellana slide away from her, easy, as she pulls on the skin of not just a wolf, but the Wolf, that she has been molding for the past many, many years. Decades.

Before becoming Ascendant she had worn the skin of a wolf, and even before that, she had learned this shape as a necessity. The Ravens liked to see the facsimile of their enemy lain low at their hand.

But even the memory of the Ravens is not enough to bring her spirits low, not like this. Not as the Wolf.

It is different to be the Wolf. The Wolf she is shaping.

Ellana takes a moment to consider the new distance between her and the ground, and imagines hahren’s bemused glance, _and still the pup grows_.

She shakes her shoulders, feels the weight of not-hair but fur and muscle moving over different bones. The grinding of glass is no more, not like this, not when she draws the Wolf over her entirety. Ellana stretches out her hind legs, yawns and feels the movement of her jaws and tongue and teeth as she pulls them open.

Her white forelegs stretch in front of her as she shakes out once more and turns around, slipping into the forest.

The forest knows its master. The Wolf draws mana around herself, part of and master and kin. Invisible and in plain sight.

Ellana flicks her ears and takes in the sounds of her household, she can smell their fire and their magic, the stink of bodies and unwashed clothing.

The harts flick their ears in her direction, but they know her. They are not afraid. They are hers to protect, why should they be?

Ellana takes a moment to wait and consider her mortals. They are fragile things. She knows little of their leaders, their gods, their masters, but she thinks that they could do better. If Ellana had them sooner she would not have let them be hurt so badly. They should never hurt so terribly, bleed so openly.

She digs her claws into the soil. It unsettles her, the thought of her mortals - so easily broken, so easily extinguished. They live so quickly, so dangerously, so brilliantly. They are dangerous things and she does not know what to do to keep them safe. To keep them from what she knows is going to happen. - being in proximity to the _rest of Elvhenan_.

The others of the Wolves she can tolerate, she can understand. They can be made to see reason, they can be made to understand. And if not they can be ordered to tolerate it.

Ellana waits to see which one of them will notice her first, aside from Compassion. Compassion brushes against her, a feeble thing - a lovely thing - but Ellana quietly brushes him aside.

He is up to something, consciously or not it doesn’t quite matter she is willing to feel entirely cross with him about it right now. Compassion accepts this with complete grace and fades into the background; a faint glimmering mist that tastes like harvest season’s air and a little like old hay.

But not even Theron seems to see her - she examines his core, weak but already recovered more than Dorian and Dalish’s. Nowhere near close to how it should be, though.

She turns onto Dalish - who is closest to her - and decides she has had enough of waiting. Ellana has waited for them her entire life, she will not continue to squander it when they can be _hunting and playing and swarming together as they should_.

She is their god, but they do not love her yet. Ellana understands this. It is inconsequential at this time. Ellana is their god and she, to the best of her ability, loves them.

For her that is enough. For now.

Ellana pounces, careful because even if Dalish has not yet completely quickened she is still fragile, and barks, softening the blow of her body as she knocks Dalish onto her back, swiping her tongue over Dalish’s face and quickly bouncing off.

Dalish yelps out in surprise and all eyes are on her and them and Ellana barks again, tail wagging softly and she wants to look at Dalish because Dalish is beautiful and proud and good and strong, and she should not look afraid, not ever. Never of Ellana, because they are sisters in so many things. Dalish should never look afraid. Dalish is better than such things.

There is awe and recognition in Dalish’s face and a breathless laugh slides between her lips. Ellana catches it with a flick of her tail and she is tempted because she wants to look at Dalish forever, but her eyes seek out Dorian - Dorian who is alway so _curious_ and asks all the good questions and creates his own wonderful if not completely false answers.

But she also wants to look at Theron and Varric, and Skinner, too. She wants to look at them all forever and ever and she has the eyes to do it. She is the Wolf, she is many eyes and many teeth, she can do it -

 _No_ , hahren’s voice is quick to cut through her mind even as the Wolf begins to turn her eyes onto the rest of her household. His thoughts are a sudden burst that makes her jolt on her feet, ears and tail pricking upwards as she jerks in his direction. _Don’t. You are not yet ready_.

Ellana sends a mental flick of annoyance at him, but she keeps the rest of the Wolf’s eyes closed.

Ellana instead barks again, leaning forward onto her forepaws and breathing a quick puff of air into Dalish’s face.

Theron laughs, amazed as he should be, “I don’t know if he’s spoiling you or if you just have him wrapped around your finger that much, lady Wolf.”

Ellana flicks her ears at him and chuffs, straightening up and lightly dancing around Dalish to knock him onto his ass with a quick shove.

As if Theron would know the meaning of the word _spoiled_.


	42. Chapter 42

Her mortals are so _slow_ , agonizingly slow as they continue to pack their things - rolling and tying and tucking and placing onto the backs of the stags they brought along, extinguishing the fires and scattering the ashes and so on and so forth even as they gravitate around the small pot with the cooling stew they had reheated from the night before.

Ellana pushes her ears back and doesn’t whine but they could be so much faster if they had magic, and she has magic maybe she could speed things up but she can also feel her hahren pushing at the edge of her mind. Not quite words or thoughts but a sense of caution and warning because magic is not meant to be used for such frivolous things without cause - she hears it in his voice - but also _who cares?_

She is the Wolf, and he may also be a Wolf, but she is is _the_ Wolf, or about to be so it doesn’t matter and she could -

It feels like a sudden drop of iron slams between the two of them, closing the distance between her mind and his, rendering it infinitely smaller and somehow impossibly wider than it was a thought before. On the other side she can only feel a stronger sense of warning, disapproval, and even _worry_.

Ellana shies away from the wall.

It appears that this is all she will get today.

Someday she will have it all. Someday she will be the Wolf, there can only be one, and there will be no one to tell her _no_.

But for now her mortals are very slow and she wants to run-jump-roll-tuck-howl-yelp-prance-thunder.

Ellana turns in circles as they move around her, before settling on Rocky who seems to not be doing anything in comparison to everyone else.

She moves up behind him, and then nudges him over with her nose. Rocky does not smell like the other durgen’len, in time she is certain he will smell more like her. More like _hers_. But he still has a faint smell of the lower world and their strange sort of foreign, stale _taint_. She wrinkles her nose and resists the urge to sneeze. Rocky lets out a startled sound as he goes down, turning to stare up at her. Ellana chuffs at him and pushes him down when he tries to get up again.

Theron clicks his tongue, “Leave it. She’s being a spoiled brat. The pup has yet to fully grow out of being pampered.”

Ellana turns her eye - the urge to pull the others open, by force if needed, is so _strong_ , an itch underneath her skin that goes straight to the core of her but her hahren’s voice forces her to hold back - onto him and silently wills the ground underneath his feet to shiver.

It complies with only a little bit of resistance and she barks, jumping away from Rocky to fully face Theron when he goes down with an awkward yelp.

Ellana barks again, turning away from Rocky towards Dorian who has been watching _curious but silent_ this entire time and that isn’t like him at all.

She moves to go over to him but a hand brushes against her side and she spins to snap at it instead.

It does not matter who you are.

 _One does not touch a god without permission_.

(Ellana will not suffer such indignity. _Never. The Wolf will never submit to that again, not while she is Wolf, she will not -_

She jolts, confused, it wasn’t her. It was?

Her hahren does not raise the thick sheet between them, but she can feel his concern on the other side grow.)

Ellana blinks at Krem who holds his hands up, pale underneath the dark of his skin and Ellana realizes she is growling, hackles raised - the air feels like the sound of scratching, the image of the grinding sound of glass.

She forces herself to relax, and moves forward to lick his cheek in apology.

This is Krem, she reminds herself - the Wolf. He is hers. She must not hurt him.

Ellana turns, now, to the Iron Bull. The scent in the air around him is different from the others.

She watches him and he watches her. His arms are crossed and his face is impassive. It should not be so. Not to her.

She dislikes his indifference. He is meant to be her sword. Hers.

She is to be the hand that wields him.

What is the use of a weapon that would, carelessly, harm the hand that wields it? None.

(That is why Ellana is here, now. That is why she is the Wolf.)

Ellana turns to face him and barks. He raises an eyebrow. She barks again, stomping her forelegs and lowering her body to better look at him.

The Iron Bull snorts and turns away from her.

Ellana barks again, quick to move so that she is again in front of him.

The bellows and breaths of Bulls are not the same as the whispers and wants of Wolves. But are they not both things that love? Ellana tilts her head and wishes she could reach into his.

The things she would ask.

Why does the Iron Bull smell like the recent touch of the Wolf? Not herself, but the other Wolf, the old Wolf that she is becoming, consuming, creating, unmaking?

For what reason has he come into contact with him? Recently?

Ellana wants her answers.

She wants to know why Compassion lingers around him when she gave the shackle to Dorian. She wants to know why the Iron Bull remains just past her fingertips, sliding away whenever she thinks she gets a little closer to digging her fingers in and finding some sort of grip on the sheer face of his exterior walls. She wants to know why the air around him seems to perpetually smell of an incoming storm and the strange cold-damp-salt of something unfamiliar and ancient.

How did he lose his eye? What is his real name? Why did he choose Iron? What was Seheron like? Did he have friends, family? What was it like to be raised in the Qun?

So many questions that she doesn’t think he would give her answers for.

“What’s up, Boss?” The Iron Bull says, not reaching for her and she is slightly disappointed. She would let him touch. Once, perhaps. And she would not react so poorly if he did it in _front of her_.

If she can see it happening, she can stop it as she pleases.

Ellana twists her head to look out into the rest of her domain.

She swivels her ears forward and _listens_. She can feel the sleeping things. The dreaming things.

But as Theron said, this is a hunt.

So she searches for a beast worthy of them, something to sink her teeth into and set her household on.

She senses far away but close enough to find, a fellow god-kin, but she has no desire to fight with the sleeping one. She and they are on good terms and she has no particular interest in disturbing the dragon that’s found its roost here. No, something smaller. Something more interesting.

Something to make the Iron Bull smile and laugh the way she imagines he did when he fought with the Inquisition and the Chargers in the stories Skinner and Krem and Rocky give her. Ellana wants to see the Iron Bull and his Chargers like that.

Ellana wants to see them laugh.

Ellana casts herself out, searching, picking and finding - ignoring the dragon. It irritably pokes at her, and she pokes back but continues on.

Ah, there.

Perfect.

Ellana curls her mark around her targets - she will let it fade once she has alerted her household, but for now she keeps it so she does not lose it before it even begins.

The rest of her twists to face her gathering and barks, body singing for blood and sweat and violence and wind.

She looks at the Iron Bull and wills him to understand.

So many things.

She surges forward and pushes her paw into his chest, not quite hard enough to knock him down, and then twists her upper body in the direction of their prey.

The Iron Bull grunts, eye narrowing as he stands his ground. Ellana flicks her ears and scratches the ground with her claws, moving back and forth, waiting for him to _follow_.

The Iron Bull just continues to look at her, irritated and she moves forward again and he visibly braces himself.

She nudges him with her paw, gentler this time - she forgets, the Wolf forgets, how easy it is to push through this world, this plane - and the Iron Bull looks a little confused as she barks, pushing gently at him with her paw.

 _Follow me_ , Ellana thinks at him, _run with me, run and be wild and free and laugh like I want to but can’t. Laugh so I can remember how it sounds and learn it from you_.

“I think,” Theron says even though he _knows_ , “She wants you to follow her.”

Ellana barks, rearing up and twisting into tight circles because it shouldn’t be this hard. It was so easy before. But before there was no need for words or glances.

There was always _knowing_.

(They were like puzzle pieces, before. Ellana’s words to Stitches softly rise and shift their way up through her mind and she jumps away from them, jumping on all fours towards the forest, hyper aware of every single thing she is trying to out run and every feather that threatens to pour out of her skin underneath the fur.)

Ellana barks, shakes the memories of the sky off of her bones and looks back at the Iron Bull, ready to run and chase and learn to laugh.

Her tongue lolls out.

The Iron Bull looks at her and tries to find her lies but he will not.

She is the Wolf, and here the Wolf is the truth.


	43. Chapter 43

One moment there was nothing, and then there was a wolf.

He has seen her in this shape once before, but at the time it wasn’t clear - wasn’t the same. It was too quick. But he remembers the color, more than anything.

Ellana, the wolf, has a coat that is white. But it isn’t white, because the color white doesn’t burn into the eyes like that. It’s the opposite of the Wolf’s black. A color that isn’t, a color between shades. It’s like there’s some sort of dimension, some sort of additional value to it that causes it to shift in the brain in ways that are hard to understand. That kind of hurt to try and think on.

It’s like the Wolf’s many eyes. If you try and keep track of all of them you’d go fuck all insane. So you just focus on two because that’s all the mind can handle at once.

He remembers this exact strange not-white clearing their heads - but he also does not remember it being the shape of an actual animal. She was a strange not-white and then a strange woman. He did not see the shape before.

He does now, and she is -

This is not a wolf.

Wolves are essentially big dogs. Or normal sized dogs if you consider the hounds Fereldan’s consider to be buddies.

Just like her color, if Bull tries to consider her shape too long it starts to make less sense, starts to yell of something beyond comprehension.

Which is different.

Because when Bull looked at the Wolf - aside from the eyes and color - Bull knew he was looking at a Wolf. Sure, a stupidly over powered wolf with too many eyes and teeth to make sense of. But he was still a wolf.

Looking at Ellana Bull can’t make the same distinction.

He won’t try, either.

_Caught in between, neither here or there, something still being shaped out of stone and clay. Not even the hands that shape know what will be inside; they can hope and they can pray. She will prey. They hope it is not on them._

Weeks of this and Bull still wants to turn around and smack the spirit out of the air like a fly.

_She is bigger than she was before, but she is not yet big enough._

And Bull thought that spies were cryptic.

Ellana, the wolf, appears without a sound or warning and Bull logically understands that something that massive - the size of a druffalo - is not natural. He also understands that something looking like that has got to be some sort of elven god fuckery.

It has to be Ellana. Who the hell else would it be?

But Ellana is not like this. Ellana has had her moods - sometimes Bull’s chest still hurts from that night weeks ago - but overall she is consistent. A struggle.

There is no struggle in this wolf.

This wolf wishes to play, she plays. She wishes to turn around and look, she looks. She wishes to jump and yip and bark, she does so. There is no restraint in this person. This creature.

Ellana, the woman he is trying to understand and work around, is the image of restraint in things like portrayal and desire.

There are parts, the Iron Bull is learning to read, that are not restrained. These parts of her, he is comprehending, are wounds. They are not particularly playful things in nature.

Bull keeps his eye mostly on her - this new face of hers, how many does she have? Then again, how many does any one person ever have?

He’s wary when she keeps knocking people down - moving in and closing in fast, not giving them time to get up. But he doesn’t see any real harm in it, considering she’s bouncing around like the overgrown pup Mahariel says she is.

Bull doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dalish so - so _that_ before.

Dalish’s hand sinks into the fur underneath Ellana’s neck and Ellana dances away, light for something so damn big. Dalish laughs, looking at her hand, and dragging the heel of her palm over her face with the other.

Bull still doesn’t believe in gods - though he has no idea what the hell he’d classify the Wolf as. A really big spirit? A demon?

_They are that which are made by mouths, shaped by time, what else can they be?_

He ignores the whisper of paper and focuses on directing his guys - half asleep, but now more awake with the introduction of the giant wolf - into packing it all up because given half a chance half of them would wander off and the other half would forget half their shit.

Sure, they’d remember their weapons and their leaf and their potions and crap. But they’d also forget their wax and their soap and their fucking spoons.

He’s aware of her, though. Peripherally. She’s playing and distracting whoever gets in her line of sight for too long. There’s no real rhyme or reason to who she picks. She moves between spinning in circles and batting at bushes and barking at empty space just as easily as any other overgrown dog he’s ever seen. Like the hounds that think they’re still small pups, playing with other animals and confused when the other animals don’t seem to want to play.

Bull doesn’t really tune in until he hears the _snap_ of jaws and his eyes jump back to her and he sees hackles raised, teeth bared, eyes threatening to multiply and _his goddamn lieutenant_.

Rocky on the ground, Aclassi hands up, the Wolf ready to pounce.

Bull moves closer without thinking, plants himself right there - can’t get closer because something. _Something_. There’s this invisible barrier between those three and the rest of them. Not really magic, just some sort of boundary made of gut instinct.

If he crosses his intangible line, the wolf may turn on him.

Instincts.

He struggles against them to keep going, to put his foot one step further.

He doesn’t need to.

Ellana blinks, suddenly pup again, and shakes, contrite, looking confused and a lot sorry.

Bull breathes out slowly and her attention moves to him and she watches him.

He watches her.

And then she pushes him. Bull blinks, and he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Ellana barks, pup again but he won’t play this game. Bull stands and waits because she was about to be violent a few seconds ago.

Compassion makes the first almost normal sound Bull has ever heard him make and _sighs_. Like he’s _annoyed_.

Bull would feel a little intrigued if he weren’t focused on the wolf in front of him.

Ellana moves to push him again. Bull digs his heels into the ground.

The touch is gentle, though, not really force - like the touch of a hand on his chest - and Ellana continues to look at him. Expectant. Then she turns around and barks, ears and body pointing at something in the forest.

It is a strange and weird fucking moment.

He doesn’t speak _dog_.

“I think,” Mahariel says sounding like he’s incredibly amused by all of these nerves, “She wants you to follow her.”

Ellana barks, ears pointed up as she jumps up - there is no impact when she lands, and for that matter, _no shadow_ \- then starts twisting into impossible for her size circles before she barks again and shakes, looking at him again. Expectant. Waiting.

Her pink tongue hangs out of her mouth, silent panting. Excitement that’s strangely familiar - pulling at something inside. A hook caught.

Bull looks from her to the rest of them, catches Pavus’ eye.

Pavus shrugs, and for a second Bull sees Compassion’s flickering green behind him. Also nodding.

Bull sighs and uncrosses his arms.

“Alright. Into the woods, I guess.”


	44. Chapter 44

Varric isn’t sure if there’s a point to where Ellana is going - thought Mahariel says there is, “She’s found your prey. She’s just getting you closer.” - because Ellana switches between straight lines, zig zags, and random complete turn arounds at the drop of a hat.

At times Ellana keeps pace with them, lightly trotting along the stags with her ears and head swiveling around. Or she’s so far ahead of them that she’s a bare spot of white, almost impossible to pick apart from the rest of the forest.

Something must signal something, because Mahariel suddenly brings his stag to a stop and says, “Dismount. You go on foot from here.”

“You say _you_ ,” Pavus says, “As if you aren’t coming.”

“Because I am not,” Mahariel replies, “I’ll watch the stags and the rest of your belongings. I’ll meet up with you later after your hunt.”

Pavus double takes, “What do you mean your aren’t coming? Isn’t it your job to go with us make sure your esteemed lady doesn’t die?”

Mahariel just looks at Dorian like the man is a complete simpleton. Varric isn’t quite sure of Dorian deserves that look, because Varric is wondering that, too.

“But that isn’t my job,” Mahariel replies, “That is _your_ job as the First’s house hold.”

“Then what the hell are _you_ here for? Aside from your classic commentary and good looks?” Aclassi boggles.

“To make sure she isn’t assassinated or otherwise attacked unprovoked,” Mahariel shrugs, “Otherwise my instructions are to leave you and she be. If she dies because she failed to properly measure her prey against her own abilities, or because she placed to much faith in her household’s capability, the fault is not with me.”

Varric is, again, struck with how strangely _cold_ these people can be to the person who is supposed to be god.

Ellana watches them from on ahead, the weird shade of her eyes intense - even more intense than the rest of her. If this were a book, Varric would say that she is colorless because it’s the closest to the truth.

In practice, Ellana is every color and if you think about it too long, you risk a migraine. Varric knows because he tried pinning down what _color_ her eyes were earlier and almost got a nose bleed.

“She’s waiting for you,” Theron says, “Go.”

“Do you at least have anything you can tell us before we begin our little game of guessing game charades with the esteemed lady of the house?” Dorian says, “Because let’s face it, you’ve been our universal translator for the past few hours.”

“You’re probably hunting giants,” Theron says after a short, contemplative pause. “Giants are one of the few things that aren’t considered sacred by anyone and cause no real conflict.”

Dalish hums and considering what Varric remembers from Daisy and the sudden influx of lessons he’s received up here that remind him of being a brat of a boy, you can’t spit and not hit something considered scared by someone.

“Wolves, bears, hawks, hares, dragons,” Theron ticks off on his fingers, “Halla, ravens, there are entire lists of sacred animals that also double as common hunting targets. I mean, you _could_ hunt those things but I doubt you are. I’m going with giant. No one cares about giants.”

The man pauses and then grins, “I’m also going to say giant because of the tusk markings on the trees.”

Skinner snorts and Krem groans - “Fuck.”

“Anything else you feel like sharing?” The Iron Bull asks as he finishes strapping his sword onto his back.

“Watch out for lightning,” Theron says, shrugging before waving at them.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dalish says as they start off, “Before anyone asks, I don’t know what that means.”

“Good to know,” Stitches says, “Well. We have practice with giants, at least.”

Ellana’s shape grows clearer and larger as they make their way over the uneven forest floor towards her.

The tip of her tail faintly moves through the air, and overall she’s quieter than she’s been all morning. Though there’s a certain glint to her every color eyes that makes Varric think of Hawke’s dog when he was getting ready to be a shit.

When Grim gets close enough Ellana turns her head and points with her body towards something in the distance. Grim moves to stand next to her and lets out a low grunt.

Aclassi steps up next to them and whistles.

“Chief,” Aclassi says, “I think you’re going to like this one.”

Bull grumbles from behind them, bringing up the rear.

Dalish and Skinner exchange glances before darting up the slight slope to meet the men and wolf. Skinner turns around once she gets up there and smiles down at them before turning to Ellana.

“I like this,” Skinner says to the Wolf who lets out a near silent chuff of air, tail swishing just a bit more noticeably with the approval. “I call first hit.”

“Unfair,” Dalish complains, “I have ranged attacks, I don’t want to wait for you to get close before casting.”

Dorian and Stitches join them just as Varric does. Dorian lets out a long whistle.

“I don’t know if I’m impressed or horrified,” Dorian says and Varric looks down into the valley that spreads out before them.

“What do you call a group of giants, mister author?” Aclassi says.

“A shit load of trouble,” Varric answers, reaching around for Bianca.

There are at least seven giants he can see ambling around. And they’re huge. At least three times as tall as the Iron Bull.

“I never thought I’d see anything bigger than you, Chief. I mean, I’ve seen giants before, but I’m pretty sure these giants shit out the giants we’ve fought,” Rocky says, standing next to Varric. “I also never thought I’d see anything uglier.”

“You’re a riot, dwarf,” Bull grumbles, standing behind Varric as he looks over them, “Strap some of your powder to you because I’m going to punt you in.”

A nest is the closest Varric can think of to calling it. A nest.

There’s a collection of large and small bones, the grass trampled flat - trees ripped up and arranged to create crude not-quite structures.

Varric can see some giants lying down, some just sitting and grooming each other or something.

And then there’s the big one.

“Chief,” Krem says under his breath as the big one slowly moves around the gathering, “Meet the Chief.”

“I call it,” Bull says automatically.

“Nasty one, that,” Dalish says. “You can have him.”

Ellana chuffs again, tail wagging more visibly. When Varric turns to look at her face, her tongue is lolling out of her mouth in a wolf’s grin.

“Do we have a plan?” Dorian asks.

“Do we ever have a plan?” Rocky counters.

“I plan on getting the big one,” The Iron Bull says. “Does that count?”

“We’re all going to die,” Dorian sighs. “Crushed like little ants.”

Ellana _whuffs_ quietly, deeply, and her eyes glint.

My, Varric thinks as Ellana turns her wolf smile back towards the clearing, what great big teeth you have.


	45. Chapter 45

It can be, at times, hard to remember that Ellana is a god. Or at least, god to be.

(He doesn’t know what that means. God to be. God. Krem only understands the Maker who has been around forever, and later Andraste who is his prophet and wife.

Krem doesn’t know how the Elven gods work. He doesn’t know if they are true gods or not. He doesn’t want to think about what it means if they are. He doesn’t want to know what will happen to him for even considering it.

The Maker, that Krem knows of, isn’t a particularly forgiving god. Though he has yet to meet a god that is.)

Krem knows this as much as everyone else here.

It is easy, for moments, to recall that half-forgotten fact when she is pouring out so much magical energy that even someone like him can feel it plain as day. But it’s still easier to attribute that to her - race. The immortal elves of Elvhenan outclass all other mages in every way.

They outclass every _one_ in every way.

They are faster. They are stronger. They have more knowledge and every single one of them has the magic to put that knowledge to use. They are long lived and to that effect see what Krem would think major inconveniences as minor annoyances that will fade away in time. They are untouchable. Untouched.

Mostly.

And then there’s Ellana, First of the Wolves, who is very, _very_ good at getting under your guard and making you forget.

Ellana who - apparently has never seen the ocean and doesn’t quite understand the concept of it, Ellana who has never seen the desert either and doesn’t know _sand_ in the same way the word _sand_ means to the rest of them, Ellana who has no idea what a nugalope is, Ellana who sews neat little stitches to mend clothing but doesn’t embroider like most noble women do, Ellana who looks at lutes like they’re foreign creatures, Ellana who talks to animals like they might talk back - is currently an actual honest to god, wolf at the moment.

Even then it’s hard to remember exactly who and what she is.

Krem remembers who _they_ are, what they are - prisoners is a word that Ellana does not like to hear. But at the core of it all, for all the freedom and fun they’ve had and are having, that’s what they are, really. Prisoners.

What else do you call people who can’t go home?

Just a few moments ago, as they were planning their approach - despite the way they look, they do _plan_ things on the occasion. It isn’t all just reckless charging in and beating things over the head - Ellana was lying down aways away from them. Her front paws were crossed, like a mischievous pup, panting silently as her muzzle and ears switched between watching them and looking in the direction of the giant’s nest; she alternated between pup-like excitement and deadly stillness.

It isn’t until now, as Ellana clears a boulder jaws open as she collides into a giant, teeth sinking into hard flesh, that Krem can remember with everything what she is meant to be.

Watch the lightning, Theron had said.

Watch out for Ellana, he meant.

Krem can’t afford to get distracted by the lady wolf, the giants here are bigger and meaner and uglier than anything he’s ever dealt with before and he doesn’t think they’d be very forgiving of distraction like that.

The good thing is that being bigger means they’re slower and aren’t as precise. The bad thing is that it takes more of them to focus on taking down one and that means more unmarked targets.

The Chief is also a big mean fucker, but Krem is going to say that the Chief is outclassed in this department.

Ellana snarls and it’s a sound that makes his ears tingle, vibrate.

He can hear her struggling with the giant - her on her hind legs as she grapples and tears into the giant’s flesh. Krem doesn’t look, though.

He manages to tuck and roll out of the way of a wave of soil and grass that flies up when Dalish and Dorian manage to trip the giant they’re working on.

All things considered, Krem thinks they’re doing pretty well considering that they’re outsized and out numbered.

He doesn’t think they’re out classed though.

Krem spares a moment to wonder to how much of the plan Ellana was listening to - considering she’s a giant wolf and hyper - and if she’s going to follow it. They didn’t exactly do much planning based on her and it’s not like wolves speak.

He jerks to the side to avoid Dalish’ bolt of energy, heat the air enough that Krem can feel it as it sings past him and straight into a giant’s hairy shin, setting it on fire.

If they had armor instead of these light leathers, Krem thinks he’d feel a lot better about this. It tends to help to have something to protect your head.

He hears the Chief snarl as he hacks at a giant’s hamstring - the hide is tough, but the Chief is a persistent bastard, and a sharp spray of hot blood splatters out in response to that. The Chief has never really had something to protect his head aside from sheer stubborn tenacity.

One giant crippled, one giant on its back and now on fire, and one giant having its throat ripped out.

Not so bad, if they continue to dodge the rest of them and piss them off enough. Krem doesn’t know about that, though. That’s not fun. That’s annoying.

And that’s not a real fight, either.

Krem ducks under a low reaching swipe of a giant and yelps when he’s hit, instead by a wolf.

Ellana is warm, almost hot - and bloody with splotches of dirt stuck in her fur. Her breath is _hot_ , and electric as she pushes Krem down into the upturned soil. The sound she makes when she growls rattles every bone in his chest.

He keeps his hands carefully to himself - but she doesn’t seem to notice as she bares her teeth at the giant that took a swipe at him.

Watch the lightning, Theron had said.

Krem closes his eyes and turns away as Ellana lights up, the hot air of her mouth turning into something living and moving. It lights up the world even past his eyelids and thrown up arms.

The ground shakes as Ellana springs back into action, he turns and peaks out through the fold of his elbow in time to watch Ellana - jaw full of lightning - crash into the giant.

The combined roar is deafening.

Now _this_ is a fight.


	46. Chapter 46

She is excited.

Why? Dorian thinks the question, even though he can already partially tell why. Though he would love to say that excitement and nerves are two different sorts of beast. One usually has nerves when facing opponents that outsize you by over the number of four and outweighs you by over the number of the fingers on both hands -  as well as possibly toes on both feet.

 _Excited_ , Compassion repeats - thinks at Dorian, just a touch firmer.

Why? Dorian repeats the thought at Compassion again.

Ellana, when he dares to look away from his own opponent - and he can’t believe that part of this plan was to have Dalish and himself mark two giants all on their own and run them ragged.

Sure, of course it helps that the entire area - this entire _place_ \- is saturated in mana. Dorian has never recovered from magical exhaustion so quickly before. To be fair, Dorian has never pushed himself to such a length before.

Ellana, when he dares to look away from his opponent for a quick inhale that doesn’t really replenish the lungs so much as it’s automatic reflex - has already taken down two and is assisting Grim and Skinner in her third.

Whatever was pristine and white and believably divine about her before has been soiled by blood, mud, and the various detritus that are bound to occur when the primary method of attack is with the jaws and ends in disembowlment or tearing out the throat.

And yet Ellana looks more alive than he’s ever seen her.

It catches something in his chest. How strange it is to see her like this. Covered in blood and viscera, a literal animal, and yet she looks _better_ , _brighter, peaceful_.

 _Because this is what she is, will always be_ , Compassion says, _a monster, a killing thing._

Dorian doubts that, he truly does.

Ellana is a deadly creature, certainly, but at her core that is not what she is. It does not take a particularly clever or intelligent person to see that.

_That is what she was taught, where were you to unteach her?_

Dorian’s mind snaps around that response and he feels Compassion almost undulate, like a wave -

_I’m sorry - that wasn’t -_

Dorian can’t afford to notate every single fascinating curve of Compassion’s methods of communication because he is currently working on siphoning off as much ambient energy as he can in order to make sure he catches this giants nether regions on fire. Or at least, the hair covering said nether regions.

It’s the fastest and most cost effective way to keep them under control that Dorian’s figured out during this fight. Dalish caught on, but she’s been using ice instead.

In between that they’re doing their best to add to the general chaos of the rest of the giants. Aside from the hulking mountain of a leader - not Bull, the _giant_ \- there’s still about six more giants going about mostly unscathed for them to cut down.

 _I didn’t mean to say that_ , Compassion sounds a little more solid and Dorian grunts a vague reply of understanding. _That’s just what she thinks, very quietly. So quietly she doesn’t even hear the ripple of the whisper. You think it too, but louder and sweeter. It’s not as cotton and corn silk._

Compassion, Dorian thinks, _now is really not the time for insights into Ellana’s psyche_.

Why not? Compassion asks.

Because I am in the middle of a fight against actual giants that are somehow more _ginormous_ than the giants I’m used to seeing and hearing about back home.

 _Oh,_ Compassion sounds like the pop of lips, _you’re distracted?_ _I forget - people like you don’t think like us. I’m sorry. Now you’re offended - people like you. You don’t like that. You use that all the time, you think it too, but when you realize you get angry. I don't mean it like that. There’s nothing wrong with you, Dorian. There are so many people who like people like you do, and it’s all beautiful and precious like sighs of dawn - softly, sighing windows and unmaking glass._

“ _Cole_ ,” Dorian snaps out loud and Skinner - who is closest to him - gives him a particular look as she skids between the giant’s legs and throws a knife directly into its groin. Dorian ignores her.

 _She’s excited because she misses hunting with her pack_ , Compassion spills out, _she misses having people at her back, she misses going back for them, she misses having people to go back to. She misses the you who was not you, a you with a different face and name, she misses you with the same face and name, she misses a combination of the you who could be, the you who was, the you that you are, and the you that you are becoming_.

Dorian’s head warns him that if he persists on trying to untangle Compassion’s particular brand of poetry without the assistance of some overly stern tutor he’s going to have a headache.

The sound he makes when Skinner yanks him by the ankle and brings him down in time to avoid getting hit from the back by a giant’s swinging heel as it stumbles back from one of Rocky’s explosives warns him that if he doesn’t stop trying to untangle Compassion’s everything at this very moment he will no longer have a head.

Both are fair and accurate statements.

The earth doesn’t move as it ought to when something of such great size creates an impact on it - unnatural, really - when Ellana comes to a halt in front of them, steam from blood and lightning at her jaws and blood dripping and matting her coat. Ellana’s eyes are bright when they land on him and he’s momentarily blinded and dumb-struck by them before she twists around and snarls, jaws opening to clamp down on the descending forearm of the giant Skinner had stabbed.

The ground moves when the giants move, but it doesn’t for Ellana.

 _She is part of it, as we all were once_ , Compassion says, fading a little.

Dorian ignores that comment - or, well, pushes it aside for later - in favor of grabbing Skinner’s arm and hauling her up and away from the wrestling giant and wolf.

She claps her hand to his arm and squeezes in thanks, and they’re off to find new targets.

Dorian spares a moment, a breath really, to look at the roll of Ellana’s massive shoulders and the furious flick of her tail as she snarls for control with the giant.

Is he afraid?

_Do you dare?_

(Ellana’s voice, oddly enough, answers from inside of him.

_Not yet.)_


	47. Chapter 47

You are excited.

Ellana doesn't have the room to think her irritation at Compassion’s touch of - touch of _something_ when he says that.

 _Yes!_ Her body, her heart, her blood sings. _Yes!_

Because this is what she missed. This is what she could of had, did have - once. She dances back and there is pain and she smells of everything dirty and shameful and base. She is blood and sweat and adrenaline and gore and shit and vile, vile things. Ellana is alive.

There are sounds from all around her and she wants to taste-possess all of them. She can hear the sounds of her household’s hearts in their chest, like rabbits and mice. Even the Iron Bull’s, which she imagines - and secretly, shamefully, caressed when she thought she could get away with it, using the softest and faintest curls of her own private energy to trace and map the black and white distortions of the air in the cavity of his chest as he breathed - to always be slow and steady and always, always certain, slams against his chest with excitement, exertion, and exhaustion.

Her mortals are tiring.

Ellana does not tire.

Gods do not tire, unless it pleases them to do so. It does not please the Wolf to tire.

When was the last time this happened, she wonders. When was the last time that she did not look over her shoulder out of caution - who knows who would be behind her? Ally? Foe? _Both?_ No one at all? - but out of curiosity because mortals fight so differently.

They are not trained to fight as her people are. She can see touches of her own training in Dalish and Dorian’s movements, but the rest of them are like foals, like wild things that have found their legs and use them with the grace of rampaging things.

Ellana thinks she could fall a little in love with the way they fight. She forgets - how short their lives are. No centuries of refinement, no assurance that there will be a next time.

Even if Ellana were to die, there would be a next time.

The knowledge they have is - ill preserved.

Though Ellana supposes it doesn’t help that their original groups - colonies? Kingdoms? Nations? - weren’t very clever about the whole information thing. They were so eager to erase and change and craft new gods - new identities - that they tore down everything from the previous ones. They lost so much. And for what?

Ellana could fall a little in love with them, the way they are. Is that why they are taught about the many inferiorities of the creatures that populate the lower kingdoms? To make their struggle unpalatable, their survival graceless?

As she is now, she is not afraid to look back or forward or listen all around.

They are here. She is here.

Ellana fears no knives, no arrows, no slight of hand. There is nothing for her to be afraid of.

Her veins sing and she feels like with them maybe she can pretend to be brave. They are faulted, faulty as she is. There is no comparison. There is nothing to compare.

Ellana can maybe be brave.

To this effect, Ellana lunges and bites and snarls and is as loud and big and space-swallowing as she wants to be. There is no one to judge her for it. No one here that would.

This is the Wolf she would like to be, Ellana thinks. This is the kind of freedom that has always been dangled between her teeth and pulled out just as she tries to close her jaws.

Ellana surges and pushes with her body, forcing the world and everything in it to make space for her and hers. She shoves her way between the Iron Bull and the giantess’ closed fists. It is an awkward angle, yes, but she manages to twist and take the blow on her shoulder.

The force of it jars her, shakes her, and the giantess is quick - clever and old enough - as she makes a grab for Ellana.

Ellana is quick enough to push herself to her feet and push the Iron Bull further away, but she is not quick enough to dodge the second hand of one of the giantess’ mates and she feels something wrench awkwardly. It was not a very solid grab, one she was able to slip out of, but it was not a clean escape.

Her right leg twangs uncomfortably when she manages to find her balance, but it isn’t something to worry about. There are worse things to survive.

She feels a hand curl into the thick fur of her neck, and she hears the hot, heavy breathing that accompanies it as she stands, pulling the body up. The Iron Bull leans against her for a moment, a breath, before finding his own legs.

Ellana glances at him quickly - mostly tired, mostly dirty, entirely smiling.

Isn’t this good? Ellana thinks at him, wishes she knew how to make him _hear_ , Isn’t this what you like? I like it too. I want it also. Does this make you laugh the way you sometimes do when I’m not there? Will you laugh that way in front of me? You should be like this all the time. You have such a beautiful laugh. Your laugh pulls my chest bones to the sky and shoves my shoulders straight. I want you to laugh all the time.

She is easily distracted by thoughts such as those.

The Iron Bull moves before she thinks - when her thoughts are still on the relief she has in her chest that blooms and spreads that the Iron Bull can still laugh. That at least he has not lost that, yet. That she could hear it at least once, in person. Even if she is not in the shape of Ellana, but the shape of the Wolf.

The Iron Bull moves and Ellana turns to watch and taste the burst of power that spreads in red waves from him as he collides with the giantess’ outstretched hand. His sword - though elven of make should not be sharp enough to cleave through her palm, her bone - slides into her arm. Ellana watches the bunch and smooth of muscle as he pushes, as blood splashes out, as the giantess howls with pain and rage.

How must it feel to be thwarted by something so small?

Ellana twists and sinks her teeth into the outstretched hand that had grabbed her before.

She pulls the storm out of her lungs and bites down hard. The taste of lightning and burning flesh and melting bone is one she will never truly understand. She feels the flesh and bone in her jaws distorting with heat as her teeth and magic rip it apart.

You are excited, Compassion says.

 _I am alive_ , Ellana answers.


	48. Chapter 48

They sling the parts of their kills that they can hack off and deem worth the effort of trying to hack off over Ellana’s back and shoulders. Neither Dalish nor Dorian attempt to heal the injury in her leg -

Everyone is burned down low, and Ellana doesn’t seem to be particularly inclined towards healing. If anything, for all that she is covered and matted in gore and dirt, she is just as energetic as before. Her tongue hangs out like she’s any normal hound that’s excited to be taken out for its daily run.

Dorian tries very hard not to be particularly endeared by this.

(Ellana, in every form, is charming, charming, charming, _charmed, I’m sure_. And Dorian is only a touch envious of that natural charisma. Dorian had to study very hard for his own appearance of such dignity.)

Ellana keeps pace with them as they trudge away from the mess of a former giant’s liar, slowly and amicably ambling with soft chuffs thrown in like comments and witty rejoinders.

Dorian doesn’t miss the way no one touches her, not really. Not after her first display of snappishness, not after the literal storm that poured out of her during the fight.

Now Dorian doesn’t think she would kill them for touching her. No, Dorian doesn’t think that at all. Dorian thinks that whatever averse reaction she has to being touched is not in that she dislikes it. Ellana, in this form, has shown no such revulsion.

It is something else entirely, and Dorian isn’t sure if he wants to put his finger on the glaring red mark of it.

 _Because it’s polite_ , Compassion says - pulling up the smeared and blurred faces of people Dorian has long left behind.

He ignores that.

By the time they reach some destination beyond the giant’s den - Dorian doesn’t actually know where they’re going, or how anyone can tell anything apart in this dense wilderness - the sun has almost gone below the horizon.

Theron and the harts, along with all of their supplies, are waiting ahead at a clearing.

He looks at them, pausing as he throws some small bags in the air - juggling them -, “So. Giants? I admit that I’m surprised you all made it back in one piece. You reek, but all your parts are attached.”

“Never underestimate a Charger,” Skinner says, bypassing them all to go root about their supplies for what Dorian hopes is soap.

“There’s a stream that pools out over there,” Theron says, tilting his head to indicate which way, “Thankfully for all of us, downwind. Lady Wolf, are you injured?”

Ellana, from behind him, chuffs and the sound conjures the image of rolled eyes. If wolves are capable of such ocular movement. He has to admit that his studies in biology were generally aimed towards the more bipedal end of the spectrum.

(Aside from the obvious reasons - it’s also much easier to control and manipulate the form of something he’s familiar with than reassemble and animate a dead bog fisher, for example.)

“No rest for the incredibly talented, I’m afraid,” Theron says to them as they move around to get camp going and set up. Theron was kind enough to have a fire going, but everything else remains packed up. Dorian supposes that there was no way for Theron to know how long they would take to kill about a dozen or so giants. “We have a deadline to make, and we will have to rush to make it.”

“No,” Dorian and everyone else startles when a strange _displacement_ occurs behind them. Dorian turns, and in the place of the wolf, there is Ellana the woman.

The ropes that bound the various pieces of bone and tusk to her, along with the remnants of the other things they salvaged.

Ellana’s skin is matted in blood and dirt, and Dorian’s eyes immediately fall to her right arm.

It looks fine.

No -

 _Look closer, always closer with this one, everything slides underneath the skin like knives and serpents, poison and grass_.

Underneath the gore, the arm looks - wrong. It doesn’t look like it belongs to her.

It strangely - detached. Dorian tries to find the accurate words for it - Compassion drags up an image instead.

One of the bodies Dorian studied on when he was still training. Yes. That’s right.

Her right arm from upper arm down looks like its been grafted onto her from a dead body. The skin, underneath, looks wrong and pale, translucent.

But it moves fine.

Ellana gestures into the vague distance.

“One day,” She says, voice rough - as if she has been yelling for hours. Perhaps she has. “It will take one day to return back. There is time to stop and rest.”

Dorian’s eyes flick to Theron, who opens his mouth in protest.

“You were right,” Ellana’s voice - rough, but soft -, interrupts him. “I am a coward, and I am running. But I am still myself. I am still - this. I know what the rest of the Sentinels say about me. They’re right. I am a child clinging to her parent’s legs, running to cry to them as soon as things get difficult. I keep the Wolf close for all that I want to be on my own.”

Ellana’s bloody mouth curves into an inward facing smile.

“Let them rest. They’ve more than earned it. Or do you not see the trophies I carried back here?”

Dorian turns away from her to survey the rest of them, he catches Dalish look at Ellana with something like awe - different than the awe of seeing her as a wolf, a more private, intimate sort - and he catches the Iron Bull openly examining her and picking her apart.

Dorian’s eyes catch Varric’s.

Varric looks away.

Why Varric looks at Dorian, he isn’t sure.

 _Another thing you don’t want to put your finger on_ , Compassion says and Dorian is ready to take this pendant off and throw it as far as he can - possible possession be damned - he is tired of such _comments_.

 _It was a memory_ , Compassion replies. _I can’t help what you call out through me._

I know, Dorian thinks. I damn well know.


	49. Chapter 49

“Dorian,” A voice pulls him out of tenuous sleep - no matter how tired he is, he always finds it a little hard to fall asleep in a tent surrounded in foreign land - even with all those weeks and months roughing it with the Inquisition under his belt.

He opens his eye, raising his head a little and sees the shadow of a figure through the tent flap, illuminated by a very small blue flame.

There is only one person it could be -

“I’m awake,” Dorian means to say. It comes out much more garbled tan that, but Ellana opens the tent flap anyway - extinguishing her veil fire as she does - and crawls in anyway.

He lowers his head and closes his eyes as she moves to lie next to him on the ground. Her knees brush his for a moment.

“I want to talk to you, Dorian,” Ellana says.

“It can’t wait until a reasonable hour?”

“I want to talk to you - in private. Alone. When no one is watching or listening.”

“You’ve collared me with the loosest lips in the world.”

“Compassion can be made to keep secrets,” Dorian opens his eyes.

Ellana’s right hand - the hand that looked like a corpse’s hand, lies between them. Washed and in the dark, it looks - still peculiar. It doesn’t quite glow, exactly. It is as if the arm was made of stone, and within that stone there was some sort of precious mineral, revealed in veins. The veins don't quite glow - they don't cast of any light or create any shadow. They just aren’t dark. They are whatever color Ellana was as  a wolf. Not black, not white, not bright, not dark.

Just - something else entirely. Something undecided.

The veins of not-glowing disappear up her sleeve.

The fingers curl softly.

“What is it?” He asks.

“I wanted - I wanted to ask you something personal,” Ellana says, and this is perhaps the first time he has ever heard her sound so frightfully _small_. So incredibly young - matching her physical appearance. “Not about that. That thing we’ve been talking around. I wanted - how are you so brave?”

Dorian blinks, more awake now than he was a few seconds ago - and he can’t help the almost painful snort and jerk of laughter.

“I mean it,” Ellana says, voice low and rushed, “How can you - how can you just. Be? After what happened to you? What almost happened? How can you keep going?”

“Are we or are we not talking about it?”

“We aren’t,” Ellana insists. “I just - when we go back. There’s going to be something waiting for me. And I don’t know how to face it. But you face your - your past every day. All the time. And you aren’t - you aren’t afraid. How? I’m so scared. I’m - I don’t want to. I know I have to, but I don’t want to.”

Ellana’s voice shrinks even impossibly smaller.

“I don’t know how to face it.”

Dorian rests his cheek on his bent arm, wishes his eyes were better and he could pick out her features in the dark like she can no doubt do with him.

“I can’t advise you if I don’t know the whole situation. For me, Ellana, I did nothing wrong. Damn them from the Waking Sea and back, I did nothing wrong. Make no mistake, Ellana. I am afraid. But more than that I am angry. I am infuriated, absolutely spitting and barking mad about the whole thing. What are you afraid of?”

Ellana’s fingers curl, flinch closed.

“I committed a crime,” She says slowly.

“So did I, after a fashion,” Dorian says, “What did you do?”

Ellana’s hand creeps closer to herself.

“I dared,” Ellana whispers. “I dared to - I dared to hope for more.”

Dorian’s heart seizes in his chest -

“I _wanted_ ,” She chokes out next and Dorian’s hand moves of its own accord - moves as it had wanted to a few days ago - and grasps her own. Her hand is surprisingly warm - almost hot. And it is shaking. “I just _wanted_ and then when - when _they found out -_ “

“Ellana,” Dorian squeezes her hand in his, “Are you ashamed?”

“What?” Ellana’s voice cracks, choking back tears.

“I asked you - are you ashamed? Of whatever it was you did?”

Ellana’s breathing silences and he shakes her hand, jerking her a little closer - their knees knock through the thick fur and leather bed roll.

“ _Are you ashamed_?”

“No,” Ellana’s voice cracks out.

“Did - did whoever they are - did they teach you to be ashamed?”

“Yes.”

“Was it because whatever it is you did - was it because it went against something they wanted?”

“Yes.”

“ _Then don’t you ever regret wanting more_ ,” Dorian breathes, “That is all there ever is. Dare. Reach for it. Grab it with the raw tips of your bleeding fingers, snatch it with your teeth. There must always be more.”

“Is that how you - is that how you’re brave? By not being ashamed?”

“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” Dorian says, “An entire life of being told I am everything to be ashamed of. That I am a _sin_. I am not. A person is not a crime, a sin - something shameful. I refuse to believe such. And that is how I live my life. That is how I am brave - if that is what you want to call it. I simply refuse to acknowledge my person - my existence - as a crime against someone else’s _preferences_.”

“Will you still say that?”

“What?”

Ellana tries to pull her hand from his.

Dorian, reluctantly, lets go.

“In the upcoming days,” Ellana’s voice is a rough croak, “You will - I also came here to ask you something in private. Ask you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I wanted to ask you to extend the same courtesy to me as I do to you. About the things we wish not to talk about. About answers. You’ll be -  you shall be receiving your answers with or without my consent soon enough. And I was hoping that you would to me the kindness of not - of not saying anything about those answers until I’m ready. Just like I won’t say anything about yours until you are.”

“And the others? They are free to say as they will?” Dorian can’t help but raise his eyebrow at that. “This was something that had to be said in private?”

“You are the only one I have such agreement with,” Ellana says, “You are the only one.”

Dorian does not reach for her again.

“What’s going on, Ellana? What’s all this about?”

“You will have your answers, Dorian,” Ellana says, and he gets the sense that she’s somehow pulling away from him without moving. “It was underhanded of me to not say so - but you and the rest of them were always going to get your answers. All you had to do was survive long enough. You’ll get them without bargains or plans or tricks. They were always going to be given to you. Taken from me.”

Dorian reaches for her.

Ellana pulls away, moving to crawl back out of the tent.

“Goodnight, Dorian. I - I know that you’re fond of me out of circumstance rather than actual free choice and will - but I hope that doesn’t change. I really - I hope that what you said tonight, that even after you get your answers, you’d still be of the same opinion. Thank you for speaking with me tonight, Dorian. It was, as always, a pleasure talking to you.”


	50. Chapter 50

“I did not know that this was here,” Mahariel sounds like how Dalish looks whenever Ellana or any of the sentinels or other immortal elves does something apparently extraordinary, or particularly exquisite. He sounds awed, touched, _reverent_ in ways Bull can only understand through the lens of blood and adrenaline - not quite war, because war is.

War is brutal. War is scars. War is Seheron and war is what put him here.

Fighting is different from a war. You fight in a war, yeah, but that’s something -

That’s something you can put away.

Wars eat you raw and spit you out less than bone.

“How did you know this was here?” Mahariel asks and Ellana raises her right hand - bare and looking bleached. She leans heavy on her right leg, holding the left like an elk or doe. Gentle. Velvet.

Bull doesn’t see any visible swelling or bruising, so it can’t be that bad.

She raises her right hand - discolored in a way that Bull doesn’t think means an injury, and it doesn’t move like an injury. What were the bandages for, then? Ellana is not the type of person for that kind of frivolity. And it _did_ move painfully earlier. She’s mostly treated it like a wound. If not in action, in the way she hides it. - and waves it in the air, Bull watches with growing tension at the base of his neck and between his shoulders as the world seems to part.

Statues buried underneath moss glow a faint green. He can’t pick out the shape of them underneath the ruin, but the magic still works.

Trees and stone move, part, as Ellana leads them deeper into - whatever it is.

The magic here makes parts of Bull long broken want to hunker down and silence himself. Parts long burned out rasp that this is everything dangerous, everything corruptible, and everything that must be removed.

This sort of magic is the exact kind that leads to ruin.

But Bull is a long way from those parts, a long time passed them. He moves on.

“It is mine,” Ellana replies, “And like I said - I wanted him close.”

Ellana’s voice is oddly - _different_.

It would be wrong to call it softer. Bull is almost entirely certain that every time Ellana is _soft_ she’s _wounded_ and _raw_. Ellana’s soft, as he understands it is _frightened_ and _breaking_.

It isn’t brittle, either, because there’s too much velvet for brittle.

If Bull were to compare it to the closest person he has experience with, like Ellana, that would be Rutherford to be honest and that tone of voice used means reflection.

A sharp, bladed thing.

( _Turn it inward_ , Compassion says. Bull hums silently.)

“This is old magic,” Theron says, eyes trailing and just as awed as the rest of them. “Second? Third?”

“First,” Ellana replies. Theron stops dead in his track.

Bull cocks an eyebrow.

Ellana’s back is towards them, but she inclines her head to the side - acknowledging the obvious question that everyone here has.

“This is not part of your studies,” She says, “At least, you have not yet gotten to it. First Age of the Wolf.”

“Is there a number for that?” Stitches asks.

“It is not a number you could compare to,” Ellana answers after a moment of contemplation. “There is no frame of reference I could give you, compared to your own understanding of time. Our time is different from yours.”

“Is that an Eluvian?” Dorian interrupts and Bull moves his eyes from Ellana’s back to the darkness ahead of them. Or what he thought was darkness.

“Yes,” Ellana answers as they come to a stop in front of -

It was darkness, but it moves. Undulates. Almost whispers.

“A crossroads,” Mahariel’s voice is plain out _reverent_. He says something else - something that sounds familiar but Bull can’t understand it.

The sounds are close enough to the elven that they’ve been learning, but _off_.

Ellana hums, almost amused except for how empty it all is.

“A crossroads,” Ellana confirms and raises her right hand. More of that not-color that Bull only just notices in the juxtaposition of the undulating black and her hand.

The whispers seem to almost grow.

“Do you hear that?” Rocky asks -

Pavus, Dalish, and Mahariel all turn to stare at Rocky and then Varric.

“What? I didn’t say anything. For once,” Varric says, hands up.

“Those are whispers of spirits, the Fade,” Pavus says, “ _You hear it_?”

The dwarves turn a little green.

“Remember your place,” Ellana’s voice is suddenly strong - powerful, familiar to the person that she stopped being almost two weeks ago when they left the Wolf’s temple to begin this hunt. Before the mandrake. “That place is at my side. Where I go, so shall you. What I am, so shall you be with me. I am the Wolf, and you are in my shadow.”

Ellana’s fingers spread out slowly and the darkness awakens, clearing and Bull had no idea how large this Eluvian was until the black fully recedes to the edges. Bull has to step back and crane his neck - even then he can’t really see the edges of the thing.

The other sight glows bright and clear.

Ellana makes no move to go forward. She lowers her hand and doesn’t quite turn to face them, but she isn’t looking away from them either.

“I want to thank you all for this time we’ve had together,” She says. He can feel the way she’s picking out her words. Tasting them. This is more like the Ellana left behind, being picked back up. God to be rather than girl in dog. “I - I enjoyed myself. And I hope you did too, at least a little.”

“We did,” Dalish’s voice is so soft.

Bull’s eye slides to her, and her face is a surprise. He knows she knows something. He wonders if it has anything to do with the complete understanding around her mouth.

Dalish’s hand reaches out and curls through Grim’s.

Grim grunts to back her up. Bull doesn’t think Dalish has told Grim, Grim’s just that kind of guy. Supportive.

“I’m glad,” Ellana says, a touch of a smile at the end of her syllables. “And - I’m sorry. For whatever it’s worth. That you’re in the situation you’re in. And that it’s going to get a lot worse from here on out.”

“Define worse,” Varric says.

“Define our _situation_ ,” Pavus snorts.

Ellana’s right hand opens and closes at her side.

“Remember how I promised to protect you if you would join me?”

“Yes,” Stitches answers.

“I understand that for you it was under duress and there wasn’t an actual option to say no,” Ellana says, “And I have tried to make it - better. But I want you to know that I meant it when I offered that protection. I meant it when I said I would protect you. And I will. Please just - just remember that. If anything, remember that one thing. If nothing else you’ve seen, heard, experienced, learned, discovered here remains with you - just that is all you need.”

Ellana’s shoulders tighten, and she takes in a breath, turning forward. Both hands fists.

“Now. Let us get this humiliation over with,” Ellana says and steps into the light.


	51. Chapter 51

Ellana doesn't give them the proper time to examine this _crossroads_ as Theron called it as she purposefully walks through this - space.

It looks like what Skinner understands a crossroads to look like. Except for the eluvians. There are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of them, as far as she can see - stretched out a silent and empty field into the distance. All of them are different shapes and sizes - different decorations and images worked into them.

Skinner briefly sees one that is so small it looks fit for only a particularly young child, or house cat. And there are others just as big, if not bigger, than the ones they just walked through.

The feeling of it - it was different than the other eluvians.

It didn’t feel like -

It felt _alive_.

Skinner breathes out and the air is so strangely crisp without being cold - it just sets everything on end, on edge. Her fingers ghost over the hilts of her knives, silently willing them to give her something. Anything.

These eluvians do not whisper, they do not seem to undulate and waver as the other one did. They are eerily blank. Empty. Just like this strange space is empty. There are eluvians, there are paths, benches, and strange tree like sculptures. But there is no sky. There are no clouds. No sun, no moons, no stars - no birds. No grass.

As far as Skinner can tell they are the only living things here.

She glances at Dalish - who looks as she had before. Awed. Astounded.

Skinner wonders what it must be like - Dalish is still close to the gods in the way that her blood remembers. Skinner’s blood remembers, but remembers only out of habit. Skinner and whoever she came from are years and years and deaths apart.

The gods are gods in name and tradition, but Skinner does not remember the taste of their ambrosia or their names particularly well.

And then there’s the Chief.

Skinner isn’t sure what to make of the Chief - he hasn’t been right. Not the way he normally is. He’s quieter, sharper, more - more.

Raw is not the word. Raw is a word for bleeding and vulnerability and the blunt overwhelming force of need. Raw is closer to Dalish.

Dalish - who does not yet need Skinner’s knives, but may be asking for them soon.

Raw is not a word she is willing to apply to the Iron Bull just yet. But he might be getting there.

Maybe it’s more appropriate to say solemn, but the word implies some kind of sadness. The Chief, currently, is not sad. Nor could Skinner name a reason why.

Skinner slides those thoughts away for another time, when knives are in her hands and she is her thoughts, and focuses back on Ellana.

All things considered, Skinner is _alright_ with the woman. She doesn’t particularly like her - but she does not have any real animosity towards her. Ellana is simply Ellana, along with the many teeth behind that pretty face. Mostly Skinner doesn’t like the way that Ellana seems to pull the raw, the scars, the wounds out of people just by being.

Varric makes a sharp sound to her left and Skinner looks in time to see him blanch and turn away from something, eyes focused on the ground. Skinner looks past him and sees nothing but eluvians.

There’s a sharp sound of noise up ahead - Skinner looks forward and sees Ellana’s hand raised ahead of them and another mirror, closer to normal size, rippling to life. She can see vague shapes and colors - and hear the sounds from the other side.

Ellana doesn’t break stride as she steps through, and there is - again - a strange feeling as Skinner passes through after Grim.

There is so much _sound._ Skinner is dazed by it - the sound, the color - after the silence of the crossroads, the stillness of the forest.

And there are so many people.

Skinner’s hands seize towards her knives, and her muscles harden when a hand clamps onto her shoulder. The Chief squeezes once and Skinner breathes, forcing herself to relax.

After months with the company of just the Chargers and the occasional Sentinel or teacher sent to drill the basics of elven language and culture into their heads, this many people is -

Almost uncomfortable.

People with every sort of _vallaslin_ , in clothes similar to the ones they now wear - Bull’s hand flexes on her shoulder before sliding away.

Skinner stares at where she thinks she saw familiar horns - imagination? A trick? Or real? - there are elves and humans up here. Of course, the elves outnumber the humans greatly, but -

She drinks in their faces, as her feet move for her.

The one thing all these faces have in common is that their eyes are on Ellana. And each one lowers their heads, raising their hands to their chests in half-bows.

Skinner turns back to Ellana who doesn’t stop even as she barks out a question at the nearest Sentinel - “Is he here?”

“Yes, Wolf Ascendant,” The Sentinel that joins them hurries to match Ellana’s stride, bowing as she goes, “He waits for you - “

“In the usual place,” Ellana says without looking, “I understand. I go.”

“You aren’t coming?” Skinner turns and sees Krem looking back at Mahariel. Skinner also turns and the man has stopped along with the mounts just outside of the eluvian, with the paused crowd.

They entered into some sort of - pavilion? Crossing? The buildings are familiar - more alive versions of the buildings in Ellana’s quarters.

This is what they would look like if they were full. Attended to always. More _modern_. Newer.

“No,” Mahariel shakes his head slowly, “The First does not permit me. I may not.”

“If it pleases my house,” Ellana calls from ahead, “They may choose to follow. Otherwise, they are free to do as they will.”

Krem’s eyes meet hers and he softly tilts his head forward. Skinner answers the question by turning on her heel and following after Ellana’s quickly receding back.

The crowds of people - workers, servants, Sentinels, all of them amidst their daily chores. She smells food, sees people with baskets and trays of it pausing and turning to bow and stare as Ellana passes. There are even some with laundry, books, some in idle conversation. All of them stand or stop, and part as Ellana passes.

Skinner thinks that perhaps part of the reason why they - the Chargers, plus Pavus and Varric - forget so often that Ellana is meant to be divinity is because of the isolation. If they were surrounded in this all the time, it would be easier to remember what she is meant to be.

Ellana barely stops to activate another eluvian - the feel of it as Skinner passes through more what she considers to be _normal_ than the previous two - and walk into an almost veranda like area.

White stones pave an almost circular, rounded, area that extends to a jutting cliff.

The first end of land that Skinner has seen since arriving here.

Standing at the end are two of the Wolf’s sentinels, and a stranger in dark robes.

“Ascendant,” The Sentinels dip their heads as Ellana draws closer.

Ellana stops in the center of the white stones, very still.

“A messenger from the Keeper of Secrets,” The Sentinel on the right says.

“Thank you,” Ellana’s voice is colder, farther away - not for space but for touch - and Skinner does not recognize the cold, formal, distance of it. As if she reads from a script. “Feylassan, Shiaril. You are both dismissed. Messenger, I will hear it.”

The Sentinels bow once more before gracefully marching towards them, past them, and through the eluvian.

The one named Feylassan looks at them with open questions, Shiaril ignores them entirely.

The Messenger of the Dirthamen says something - it sounds like elven, but not the kind Skinner knows.

“If you are to speak to me, messenger,” Ellana’s voice is crisp - like the air of the crossroads - , “You will speak in the tongue of the Wolf or not at all. Know your place. Know where you stand.”

“I had thought to hear the message in your mother tongue would be most welcome,” The messenger says, words accented. It takes Skinner a few seconds to put them together.

More words for a time of silence and knives and thought.

The messenger raises up a cloth covered object, “A gift from our master.”

“I am a Wolf,” Ellana replies, “I have no master.”

Skinner turns to Dalish to see if she understands this exchange.

Because even to Skinner’s ears - unknowing and unaware of the intricacies of the world they have been forced to live in - that sounds like an empty lie.


	52. Chapter 52

“With respect, Ascendant,” The messenger of Dirthamen tilts their head to the side softly, curiously, Varric instantly wants to kick this guy over the ledge. Something about him reminds Varric of everything Kirkwall-brand-asshole, and Varric’s shit senses are all tingly. This guy is a Bad Guy, capitals heavily implied. And whatever this Bad Guy does next is not going to end pretty. “All dogs can be brought to heel.”

“Are you in a position to try?” Ellana replies, eerily reminiscent of someone else that isn’t her. She sounds more like the nobles Varric is used to hearing when he was in Kirkwall and with the Inquisition than the Ellana he’s come to understand.

The messenger does not reply, but removes the cloth from over the item in his hands to reveal a cage with a raven inside it.

The raven flaps its wings, agitated and lets out a rough caw.

Ellana raises her hands.

“Give him to me,” She says.

Faint light surrounds the cage as it is floated over to her - neither one of the two elves moving to cross the space between them.

Ellana snatches the cages out of the air, turning partially to the side - enough that Varric can see the rigid hardness of her face.

“His name is - “

“I damn well know his name,” Ellana says, “What happened to your predecessor? He was much better at this whole messenger business than you. He knew his place.”

“With _respect_ , Ascendant,” The messenger’s voice curls like poison in the air, “He was removed because he _did not_ know his place as a Raven’s messenger. The Raven Twins look forward to seeing your growth in the near future and wish you well. How would you wish to reply?”

“You are dismissed,” Ellana says, eyes for only the bird in the cage.

“No reply?”

“None that you would carry truthfully,” Ellana says, “Leave. Without your purpose you are no longer welcome in my presence.  Remove yourself.”

“The Wolf’s hospitality leaves much to be improved,” The messenger says but bows and twists - cloak shifting around them until they become a raven themselves, and flies away.

Ellana breathes out a long almost groan, and Varric looks back to her. Ellana’s fingers are tangled in the cage bars as she holds the cage close to her with a horrifying kind of _desire_ in her face.

The raven in the cage examines her as she shakily opens the doors and reaches inside. It moves onto her arm easily. A tame bird.

Ellana stares at it.

Everyone stares at Ellana.

Out of the corner of his eye, Varric sees Dalish turn away, curling over, shoulders heaving. Rocky turns towards her, alarmed, and puts his hand on her back, trying to see whats wrong with her.

Varric hears the sound of Dalish retching.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dorian asks, the first one to speak, to start moving towards her.

“Nothing,” Ellana whispers out, “Everything that always is and was and will be. Nothing new. Something from before you.”

She strokes her finger down the raven’s breast. It clicks its beak at her.

“If it’s nothing,” Dorian asks, “Why do you look at it that way? Do you truly like birds that much?”

Like she’s dying or about to be dead and this bird is the last thing she ever wants to see. As if this bird holds the secret to life itself.

“No,” Ellana shakes her head, eyes never leaving the bird as she turns her body to fully face them. “ _I love ravens_.”

“Then _why_ are you looking at it like that?” Dorian repeats.

As if this bird is about to snatch that secret from her chest, like it just snatched that secret from her still beating heart.

“Why do you look at the base of your small finger like that when you think no one is looking?” Ellana returns. Varric blinks with the sharp twist of cruelty that comes out of nowhere.

“ _Sister_ ,” The raven cries out, wings opening and closing, “ _Sister_. _Betrayer. Filthy bitch dog_.”

Ellana’s face is stone, louder in how frigid and pale and grotesquely hungry it is than the gasps around him. From him.

“Hush,” She whispers, fingers still running through the raven’s crest. “Hush, now.”

Dalish retches slightly louder and whispers a furious curse.

“ _Bitch dog,”_ The raven says again, “ _Renegatho. Cozener. Miss me? Love me? One and only love.”_

Something comes out from the Eluvian behind them.

Varric says something because he’s never actually felt something like that - a wave, an actual wave of something alive, like an invisible liquid, but alive. It’s almost like the feeling of red lyrium, but rather than the skin-crawling anxiety and rush to the heart and weird sense of dread it’s more -

Cold. Like a solid misting of the breath that slides fingers over your shoulders, brushing against the most sensitive parts of the neck and jaw.

“The Wolf enters,” the head Sentinel’s voice announces.

“Silence that bird,” A new voice - low and curled at the edges like frost, “Or I will.”

Ellana’s eyes slowly move from the bird to the voice from behind them. Varic can’t turn.

“ _Show your respects_ ,” The head Sentinel’s voice continues.

“Leave her, Surana. I permit it,” The voice says, and Varric feels something _moving through him_ as a figure passes between them. “And her house hold is ill trained and ill equipped to begin with. Mistakes should be accounted for while there is time. I’m sure you will be correcting them in the near future.”

“Yes, Wolf on High.”

Varric looks up and sees trailing robes in plain colors, and a large thick black pelt of - he’s guessing - a wolf, over a shoulder.

“Da’len,” The Wolf stops in front of Ellana, who’s eyes have returned to the raven. Sharp eyes slide down her body and linger on her exposed and discolored right hand, then her injured leg. He raises an eyebrow.

Ellana is silent.

He holds out his hand and Ellana places the discolored hand in his, the Wolf brings her palm to his mouth and kisses the center of it, eyes on the bird.

“Shall I send it back in pieces?”

“No,” Ellana’s voice cracks. “I will place him with the others. He can be taught.”

“As you say,” The Wolf hums. “Come.”

“No,” Ellana says, eyes lowered, “Please allow me to tend to my house first.”

The Wolf narrows his eyes.

Ellana lowers her head and bends her knees, an awkward curtsey.

The Wolf raises a hand, a faint green glowing from it and he waves it over her.

Ellana looks up.

“Neither of us have the luxury for you to recover properly,” The Wolf says, “Put the bird away, tend to your household. Then come.”

The Wolf’s mouth turns down, sharp at the corners.

“There is much for us to adjust and very little time to do it.”

The Wolf’s hand lowers and he turns towards them, eyes flicking over them, dismissive and uninterested except for a moment of curiosity when his eyes land on the Iron Bull, and sharp acrid amusement when his eyes slide over Dalish.

Again, the feeling of something moving _through_ him as the Wolf strides past them towards the Eluvian again.

Varric’s mouth feels frozen shut. His eyes refuse to move to follow.

There are no sounds but that of the Wolf and Ellana - who sounds washed out, wrung out - in comparison to the strange living texture of the Wolf’s voice.

“Ascendant,” The Wolf calls out.

Ellana, gray and painfully thin looking holds the bird to her chest.

“Yes, hahren?”

“Do not make me look for you.”


	53. Chapter 53

It is grotesque and horrible and disgusting and an absolute mockery -

Dalish's mouth is foul with bile, the back of her throat and eyes stinging even as Rocky’s warm hand steadies her.

She tries not to lean on him too much.

The ground feels too solid underneath her feet, and her skin feels hot with anger and rage that isn’t truly hers to have.

The word _hecatomb_ brands itself over Dalish’s skin a thousand times and she wants to scream because Ellana’s face is _entirely wrong_ for this situation. Ellana looks small and lost and isolated - far away and about to be dashed into the ground by the quick approach of color and sound. She looks at the bird, the raven, with adoration and Dalish wants to snatch it away and throw it into the air and yell at it until it leaves.

Ellana’s eyes slide away from the raven and meet hers.

Dalish feels her eyes prickle.

Her loyalty will always be to the Iron Bull and his - _her_ \- Chargers first and foremost.

(Somewhere, somewhen, this displaced her clan. Dalish does not think her clan would particularly mind. They have enough people without her. They do not need Dalish to turn into spitting fire for them. But these people do, and if they don’t, they want her to and love her for it when she does.)

But Ellana is -

Ellana is a remnant of what her clan was, Ellana is this branch on a tree that her clan has traced back to find the root of immortality and perfection. Ellana is what was left behind, or at least - what was allowed to stay.

Ellana is also her god.

Dalish steps away from Rocky, towards Ellana - and the woman’s eyes tremble for a moment before she tilts her head to the side and they are walking to meet each other in the middle.

Ellana’s hand - the one not holding the bird aloft - rises up and touches Dalish’s cheek, sliding over skin and grasping the back of Dalish’s neck. The action is so familiar. The situation is familiar. But now, face to face, Dalish’s heart cracking sparks and Ellana’s heart bleeding colors, it is so vastly different.

“Sister,” Ellana whispers softly.

Again that word, that word in the _vir asha_ \- comrade and suffering combined.

“That was cruel,” Dalish responds in the _vir asha_ \- a language that the others will never learn because it is not one taught, but one grown. One that even her clan - that most clans - have managed to keep.

The _vir asha_ is not a language known, it is a language understood. It is a language you are either aware of or are not. Such is the path of womanhood. Such is the path of the one who suffers. There will never be words for the suffering endured by the ones forced to be silent.

“They are cruel, and it is wrong, and I do not understand how you can take it,” Dalish cracks out. Sparks.

Ellana’s eyes are briefly wide - whether it is surprise that Dalish is so fluent in the _vir asha_ , or that Dalish is so angry, she doesn’t know.

Ellana’s hand tightens briefly and she pulls their faces closer, her breath is cold where it touches Dalish’s skin.

“Take him,” Ellana says gesturing slightly with her other arm. The raven perched on it raises its wings - agitated as it lets out a sharp caw and digs its talons into Ellana’s arm.

“Why?”

“Because he is a good man,” Ellana replies instantly and Dalish feels her ribs cracking with the heat of it all, “And because I trust _you_.” Ellana’s liquid eyes are alive with magic and a drowning sort of vivacity. “ _Sister_. In more than the feather’s shaft. We are both god-killers, after a fashion, you and I. And we both must bear those consequences. Take him. When you get back to the other side of the eluvian, ask a Sentinel to take you to where this kin are. They will not question you. Take whoever you can trust with my secret with you. If any.”

“ _Why?”_ Dalish repeats, heat tickling the back of her throat. Dry and scratching.

“Because you are beautiful,” Ellana whispers as Dalish raises her arm and the bird moves over to her. A heavy, dark weight. “Because you are beautiful and in love with all of them and I am envious of you. Because you are stronger than you think you are.”

Dalish’s eyes threaten to spill with heat.

Ellana, survivor of clan Lavellan, stands here and tells Dalish that _she_ is the strong one. Ellana, faced with mockery of the hecatomb, spat vitriol and power at the feet of the Secret Keeper’s messenger. Ellana, who does not cry like Dalish is trying not to.

Ellana’s fingers are warm, pulsing with magic on Dalish’s skin as Dalish closers her eyes to how awful it all is. How rotten.

Ellana’s lips touch Dalish’s forehead and Dalish is half-shocked to hear the prayers, the blessings, that Ellana whispers into her skin.

“May I?” Ellana asks, and Dalish feels a soft and gentle fall of mana hover over her core. Dalish licks her try lips, sniffs through her hot tears and nods. Ellana angles their heads and breathes over Dalish’s lips. Dalish feels something not quite cold, not quite hot - more like electric - pass over her skin, through her, and dissolve into her core.

It spreads through her bones, and she feels - brighter than before. Larger.

“I want to ask one more thing of you, Dalish,” Ellana whispers, voice rough. Dalish raises her eyes to meet Ellana’s. “I asked them, I asked you, to trust my promise from earlier.”

“That you would protect us.”

Ellana dips her head.

“In the upcoming days - weeks - you will learn things - many things about me, the gods, the rest of us. You may grow to hate us. Hate me. Be disgusted. But I want you to answer this question, _why do you pray_?”

Dalish blinks.

“Why do you pray, Dalish? Why does anyone pray?”

For forgiveness, for help, for assistance, for miracles - power, strength, love, hate - for any number of things.

There are no answers to be found in Ellana’s face.

“For help,” Dalish answers - simply because it is the most common answer she can think of.

The bird makes a sharp sound and shuffles on Dalish’s arm.

“Among other things, yes. Remember that Dalish. Just - just remember that.”

Ellana moves to let her go, to step away - already half turned to go back to the others.

Dalish reaches out with her free arm and grabs Ellana by the neck and brings her to face her again.

Ellana’s eyes are sharper - surprise and the faintest touch of violence at the curve of her lip at Dalish’s abrupt actions -

“Fen’enaste,” Dalish says and presses her lips to Ellana’s forehead.

She hears Ellana suck in a breath.

“I don’t know why I pray,” Dalish whispers, “But you are the Wolf I pray to.”

You are the Wolf I pray for.


	54. Chapter 54

Hahren has stripped off his outer layers by the time she makes it to his private quarters. Ellana’s insides twist and tangle, endless knots like the veins that writhe underneath the surface of the earth. He glances up at her as she enters before returning his gaze back to the orb in his hands.

Ellana doesn’t look at it - too much energy is going in at once.

She takes a seat at the edge of his bed and watches the lines of his face instead.

He looks no older, no more aged or different, than before she last saw him. And he did not look particularly different from the time before that, at that time, either. So on and so forth.

It is something underneath the skin, Ellana thinks. Something that used to be so saturated she could taste it in her lungs that has worn away with handling. Paint or varnish on a wooden object that’s been touched by time and many hands.

She does not know if that thing underneath is divinity - in which case, Ellana is the hands, the handling - or something else. Something purely _Solas_.

“We have very little time to work with,” He eventually says, tucking a stray strand of power into the focus with a soft curl of his pinky as it attempts to escape and return to him. Ellana reaches over and tugs at one of his robes lying on the bed. She pulls it onto her lap and starts to trace the seams and the workings sewn into them. “For the rest of today and tonight I will put you in the dreaming as I prepare your body and test your mind. Ideally we can spend tomorrow laying the first groundwork.”

“And then?” Ellana asks, tracing the almost bramble like weight of the magic that would go over his chest if he were still wearing this robe. Right over his anchor point. Ellana glances down at her anchor, dormant, sated. Sleeping.

“And then we do the dirty work of birthing a new god,” He answers.

Ellana breathes in, breathes out.

Dorian faces the horrible truth of blood magic and betrayal every day. Dalish lives with the knowledge of exile and treachery. Krem with the burden of truth. The Iron Bull with the horror of understanding. Varric with abandonment. Skinner with loss.

Ellana can face her death with grace if they can.

“I am ready,” She says, spreading his robe out over her legs.

She doesn’t quite flinch when he scoffs. She looks up as the light of the focus dims. He spins the orb in the air as they watch the magic recede into its depths. As it dims and slows to a stop she raises her eyes to his.

“You are not ready,” He says sharply, and then - softening around the eyes -, “You could never be ready.”

“Were you?” Ellana asks.

His eyes lower to the robe in her lap, the invisible to the eye but mountainous to the touch weave of workings that hide the scar of his anchor.

“No,” He says, “But as it stands with your circumstances, it does not matter if we are ready or not. What must happen will happen. And so we must endure it.”

He blinks and then looks around, “Where are your things?”

“In my quarters,” Ellana answers. He raises an eyebrow in question. “I will return to see them. Eat with them. I will come back here to dream with you - but I want to. I want to have as much time with them as I can. Before - before we truly begin.”

Hahren hums in consideration before dipping his head, “Very well. Lay back. I will send you into the dreaming.”

Ellana lies back on his bed, breathes in the cold of his mana - familiar, gentle, familial, graceful in a way she has learned to be _good_. This cold is different from the cold of the others. This is the cold of the first touch of your breath in the morning, the kiss of a chill on your lips as you breathe out to the dawn. The cold of the morning after night.

The cold slowly washes over her, like water lapping in an bath and Ellana takes in a deep breath and allows herself to sink underneath the surface. His mana pulls at hers, smoothening her out as if she were wrinkled silk. He slides her out of her body.

“There will be no dreaming later,” His voice says.

“Yes,” Ellana thinks the word comes out of her mouth. She turns her mind towards the Chargers. She had rushed to make sure she beat them to her quarters - she wanted one last look around - before coming here.

She directs herself in the direction of where they should be - stretches her fingertips to try and find the faint touches of their heartbeats. And she is surprised to find she has to stretch further to find three of them.

Dorian, Dalish, and the Iron Bull are not where they should be.

Ellana immediately snaps a barrier around them. It is a strange feeling to do it from so far away - but it helps that she is entering the dreaming. Ellana pulls a length of herself away - towards them, latches onto the breath she slipped into Dalish, still fresh.

The three of them are talking, but Ellana can’t truly hear it. Just murmurs. She sees their vague shapes, colors, temperatures and smells, but she is not there. She is with her hahren, entering the dreaming.

“You waste yourself,” He says, “You will need your own mana to counteract the wolf’s and to repair as much as you can.”

“It is not a waste,” Ellana replies.

“You seek to protect them from watchers, from those who would overhear, the ones I have sent,” He says, “Why? They will not thank you. They do not know you do it. Save your energy for what is about to happen to you.”

“It doesn’t matter if they know or not,” Ellana feels a ripple of irritation build in the smoothness of her silk. “I’ve taken so much from them already - I can at least try to give them some measure of privacy.”

“To what end?”

“There isn’t one,” The ripple shifts into a wave, “I’ve lost. I’ve run out of time. They don’t - they aren’t devoted to me as yours are to you, they don’t even like me that much. It doesn’t matter if they know about this or not. It’s too late. I have arrived at this point where I am here with you and I am about to - “ Ellana’s mind seizes around the myriad of words that should follow.

None of them make it to her lips.

She focuses on the barrier she wills into place around them. She does not know how long she will be able to concentrate on sustaining it, especially once their preparations begin. Ellana layers her final touch - her own mana, separate from the Wolf. That she has precious little of, she has used most of her own mana already, and this is a powerful barrier she is trying to hold up. Hahren is right. This energy will be needed to keep her alive. This will cost her.

But they both knew that her surviving ascendance was a long shot anyway.

If she were her hahren, this barrier would be cold and still - the silence of a winter forest. Not a single bird or heartbeat. No wind. Just the echo of your own cavernous ears, the magnified swell of your own breath misting in front of you.

But she is not him. She is a thousand things running - feet and heels striking the ground like thunder, and dozens of feathers caught in the rush of flight. Branches whipping and snapping, a rush of sighs. Her barrier is an endless susurrus that fills and rushes in the ears as the world narrows to a pinprick of blurred and brilliant light in the distance.

For however long she can - she will buy them time. Ellana owes them so much. With the last of her power - _her own power_ \- this is the very least she can do for them.

She has taken so much more.

Hahren’s hand is warm on her forehead as he strokes her hair back. She feels him kiss her forehead, as she kissed Dalish’s earlier.

“Are you ready, da’vhenan?” Ellana opens her eyes to his, and her heart reaches out to touch the rings of his eyes.

“I will endure,” Ellana whispers.


	55. Chapter 55

“I thought we would begin here,” Hahren says when Ellana opens herself fully to the dreaming, and is completely drawn into it. She followed the trail of his lapping, shifting, gliding mana to this place.

The sun glints off of vast distances of snow and rock and stubborn looking trees.

“Do you know this place?” He asks. She turns and sees him as he always should be.

Proud, strong - not necessarily younger - but somehow more vibrant. More alive. There is, here, always the slightest curl of mischief to the corners of his lips. Always the rose touch of affection at the high points of his cheeks.

“Parts of me do,” Ellana answers as she tries to place this image in her knowledge. The mana of the Wolf responds to it. The parts that have already been transferred remember - though she, herself doe snot. Ellana turns and looks around. Assuming that this is a somewhat accurate representation of the physical world - “We are close to the place where the sky was held.”

“Correct,” He says, the rueful curl to his lip expanding as he clasps his hands between his legs, sitting on a snow and frost covered rock. “I thought it would be appropriate to begin here. Where Solas died.”

“So I die, too,” Ellana says turning to face him. “What are you doing?”

In the physical world, she can feel him anointing her skin with oils, she can feel the whisper of workings and wards being layered over her body like the brush of an eyelash. A thousand blinking kisses.

“Preparing your body as much as I am able,” He says, and his expression is briefly mournful - too much like the way he is in the physical world. “I wanted this to be - I wanted your ascension to be better than my own. I wanted to go slow with you. I wanted you to have the time to get used to it, to grow into it on your own. I had plans and dreams of guiding you slowly, letting you into it like a softly slipping petal into the waters. The faintest of ripples, the slightest of dips in tension.”

“All dreams must end,” Ellana recites - Theron’s voice echoing in the dreaming with her own - “That is why they are dreams.”

“The Mahariels are wise beyond their years,” Hahren laughs, and then sobers again just as quickly. “These first few hours, this first night - while the incantations and wards adjust and calibrate, I wanted to prepare you as much as I able. Mentally. But I find that I don’t quite know where to begin.”

“Doesn’t that sentence answer the question it reflects upon? Start at the beginning.”

She sits at his feet, legs folded and her hands face up on her knees. He looks down at her and there is always a touch of distant wonder in his face. Ellana wonders if she will find out why.

“Da’fen,” His hands clasp, unclasp, clasp again. Nerves. “I - . Your household will learn things about you, about us, in the upcoming days. Things that you hope will not influence your opinion of you, but will. Dark things that you wish they did not have to know.”

Ellana narrows her eyes, head tilting at the strange turn of the conversation.

“Yes.”

“And now, here,” He breathes, “You will learn things about us - about the Evanuris. These are things that I wish you did not have to know, things I wish would not influence you. But they are things that - that I believe you must know now. Before you receive them.”

Ellana’s fingers twitch, curl, and she opens them again.

“These are secrets kept only by the Evanuris. Parts of them have trickled down to the rest of you - but they have been warped. Changed. Distorted. They are not the pure truth. The pure understanding.”

“Tell me.”

His eyes are like clear, still, and silent ice when he looks at her. The sort you could lose yourself in, trying to find your reflection’s end.

“I wish you were able to meet him,” He says softly. “The one who came before me.”

“The one who died here,” Ellana says.

“Yes,” He nods, “The one who died and took Solas with him, so that I may become the Wolf.”

“What was the Second Wolf like?” Ellana asks.

“He was as tall as I, darker skinned,” Hahren says, closing his eyes. “You will see soon enough. You will understand soon enough. But I believe that if you had met - actually _met_ \- you would have liked him.” His mouth blooms at the corners. “My predecessor would have made you smile.”

Ellana almost says _you make me smile_. She catches herself in time.

“But he was not the Second,” He continues and Ellana frowns, eyebrows drawing down. “No, you are not forgetting someone. That is what you, and the rest, have been taught. What the world has been made to remember. You call him Second but that is false. He came third. I am fourth. There is one who was left out of the count."

“Then who - ?”

His hands open and he looks down at them. She moves onto her knees, reaching out to take his long hands in her own.

“The Wolf’s plan failed here,” Hahren says, abruptly. “The Third died here. I, the Fourth, was born here. I want you to remember this, that what we - the Third and I - attempted here. The failure is not one that will repeat. The circumstances are vastly different - the times, the attitudes, the people. It is important that you, Ellana, remember this. Whatever you choose to do  should you continue to follow the path he and I have set on, eschew it, or choose an entirely different path altogether. That is all your choice. You may be the Fifth Wolf, but who that Wolf is and what they stand for is entirely up to you. I will not stop you. No one can. That is the freedom I promised you. That is the freedom I give to you.”

“Tell me,” Ellana insists.

Hahren shakes his head sharply, but he doesn’t take his hands from hers.

“The original Evanuris - you know them already.” He turns his hands and tangles her fingers with his own. “I wanted to ease you into this, Ellana. I wanted you to taste the joy of freedom, of being beholden to no one, of being untouchable. Proud and free.”

“I know them?” Ellana tilts her head, frowning - the original Evanuris? How?

He bends down and presses his mouth to her forehead.

“It will be harder for you - but I will try and direct it to start at the beginning. It will be harder for us both, it will hurt more - it is infinitely riskier and more lethal to focus on the beginning rather than the more recent events. But it will - it will keep you safe. It is the only way I know to give you some sort of preparation for whatever the Ravens and Andruil have planned.”

“I understand,” Ellana says, squeezing his hands.

“But for now, while we are still - coherent, while we are still coherent. I wanted to show you some things,” He looks past her, beyond her. “As you wanted to show them our world to remember something beautiful by, so too, do I want to show you something for you to remember that, too.”


	56. Chapter 56

Dalish breathes, and tries to shake off the - she tries to shake it all off.

The aviary. Ellana’s words - the word _sister_ in the vir asha. The feeling of Fen’Harel right behind her, moving like a bad wind through her lethallin, some sort of specter of death. The taste of her own weakness in her mouth - twice in one day. Once when she first saw the raven, second when she saw the hundreds more within the aviary.

It was a beautiful place - hard to get to, but beautiful. The glass was spotless and the metal of the structure almost invisible from how it was made and enchanted. The trees were verdant, and the fountains were pristine. It is a place that is well tended. Well loved.

Dalish thinks she would have been incredibly humbled to be given the secret of such a place, if it weren’t for the black cloud of ravens that lived within.

And each one responded to the same name.

Dalish gags again at the memory - dozens upon dozens of black feathers and black eyes and blacker voices all crying out the same words in the response to the same name over and over again.

It was horrific.

Dalish breathes and tries to shove it away, push it to the back of her mind because she doesn’t know how to keep this from the Chargers. She doesn’t want to lie to them, but this secret, this _infection_ -

It is not something Dalish has any right, any will, to uncover.

When Dalish returned to their quarters - three eluvian trips that felt like a relief in comparison to the the eluvians of earlier - Skinner had told her that there would be some sort of lesson after the midday meal, and that Krem had been looking for her to tell her something.

Dalish stands and stares up at the perfect stained-glass like canopy of leaves and morning sunlight and listens to the ambient sounds of the wind through that canopy, the sound of birds and water and - distantly - the strange new sound of people.

There are now people in Ellana’s glade. Servants - more than the usual one or two who would occasionally come in to assist with the bigger tasks of cleaning and replenishing their stores.

Until now cleaning, gardening, maintenance of the buildings had all been handled by them. Ellana, Dorian, Varric, and the Chargers.

But now the eluvian into Ellana’s little world remains open and vibrant, and people pour in as if they are water creating a new branch in a stream that had been long cut off. A dam broken.

Somehow Dalish had thought that this place was silent - still - immovable, unmoving. Different from the rest of Thedas where everyone is moving, always, even in their sleep. It had felt that way coming here, at first.

But perhaps that is just the Wolf and his Ascendant. Perhaps that is just this sacred place. Perhaps that is something just reserved for those special few.

She breathes out and tries to shake off this entire day.

“That doesn’t make sense,” She says.

“Think about it,” Dorian says - and his voice is so passionate that it rubs her scaldingly raw with how _right_ he could be - , “Everything here is supercharged. Practically soaked in magical energy. The both of us fully recovered from magical exhaustion - from practically almost _dying_ \- within a matter of _days_ in time to fight an entire nest of the extra large variety of giant.”

“I am not Mahariel,” Dalish says, eyes fixed on the blue of the sky. “He’s a Sentinel - _he is above and beyond_ what you would consider a _normal_ elf who has not yet quickened. And even then I don’t think he’s quite standard as a Sentinel, either. I can’t do what he did. I can’t power the spell like that.”

“It doesn’t have to be exactly like that,” Dorian says, “I just need a little bit more than we have together. Enough to transport something _small_. Not an entire band of displaced mortals and their pack animals fifty something paces and a few feet off the ground.”

“No,” Dalish finally brings her gaze onto him, glaring, “Instead you want to transport a piece of paper to Skyhold. Which is - I don’t even _know_ how far.”

“That’s just it,” Dorian says, “ _It doesn’t work that way_. I wouldn’t actually be transporting _anything_.”

Dalish turns to the Chief who shrugs, raising his hands up.

“I’m just here to hear the practicalities of it. I don’t know how the details of your magic works.”

She turns back to Dorian, “I don’t know how your spell works. I was just - I was justing managing the output between the two of you.”

“It’s,” Dorian runs a hand through his hair, ruffling the normally immaculate coif in ways that make Dalish feel a little pleased. “If I had just been able to stake _awake_ after the damn thing happened - “

“Be glad you have a pulse.”

“ _If I could have written it down_ \- damn it all. It was so clear when I was doing it,” Dorian presses his thumbs to his temples and breathes out. “Have you ever seen a children's book?”

Dalish considers punching him to see if he’ll make more sense.

“The pictures, I mean,” Dorian says - perhaps sensing where her thoughts are going. “And how the pictures illustrate events, going from one action to the other. Time is like that. Just a series of images, sort of. What we did together over that mandrake - it was something like. It was something like cutting out our shapes in that picture book and flipping the pages back and adding us somewhere else. Not only were we going _back_ in time, but we were also _moving_ ourselves in time. Do you follow?”

“So far,” Dalish says, nodding. The Chief nods too, curious tilt to his head. “And that’s different from what you want to do now?”

“Yes,” Dorian says. “Rather than removing something from this page and placing it somewhere else and somewhen else, we took something from this page and _returned_ it to where it _could_ be in another page?”

“And you’ve lost me,” The Chief groans.

Dorian lets out a frustrated hiss.

Dalish turns her face back to the sigh and prays to the Wolf that this doesn’t get them killed.

Dorian mutters to himself in Tevene for a few hot seconds before he lets out a blistering sigh.

“Does something ever stop existing?” Dorian asks and Dalish groans out loud and raises her fist to punch him because obviously something needs to be knocked back into place for him to work properly. “ _No need to get violent_ , just listen to me. This is perhaps where things get a little fuzzier around the edges than normal if memory attempts to serve. Say that there is a seed growing right here. At our feet. Right now.”

“Alright,” The Chief says, sounding as skeptical as Dalish feels as she returns her focus to Dorian’s face.

Dorian’s brows are drawn downward in fierce concentration as he tries to push the words out of his mouth.

“And say that this seed grows into a marvelous tree. Spectacular. Nature at work, huzzah.”

“Anyway to cut to the point sometime this _year_?”

“I’m getting there - just. But what if someone cut the tree?”

“If you ever had me you’ve lost me,” Dalish says.

“ _What if_ ,” Dorian says, “Before it could become that marvelous tree that nature worked so hard on, a bolt of lightning struck it? Or it got snapped when it was still a sapling just sprouted? Or it got cut down for whatever reason? Did that original, spectacular tree ever exist?”

Dalish frowns, because -

“Yes,” Dalish whispers and Dorian’s eyes flick with light, “It did exist. Somewhen else. The old tree was a possibility contained within the seed.”

She stares at him and Dorian smiles.

“Varric has a copy of the Chant of Light he borrowed from the good Commander and never returned. Suppose we took a page out of that book, a corner even, and returned it to where it could have been. Not displacing it, not adjusting it in time or space. Just _returning it_. With something written on it.”

Dalish stares at Dorian because he’s speaking like an elf.

“It is the same book, the same picture. But drawn in a different hand. Not cutting and removing, but scratching off to reveal a hidden layer. Not rewriting, but re-reading. It can be done,” Dalish whispers, “But the energy you’d need still surpasses the both of us - “

“We’ve been eating, breathing, and drinking saturated magic,” Dorian says. “We have the magic, or we will soon grow into it. Or did you think that maybe you’d gotten strong enough to fight those kind of giants due to time?”

Dalish turns away from Dorian, the unsettling touch of ravens wings against her skin a memory that threatens to drag her down and away. Ellana’s voice pierces through their croaking. _Claim them_.

“I can try,” Dalish says, turning to the Iron Bull.

“I don’t understand a single word the two of you have said,” He says looking at her, “But if this is what you want to do, I’ll do whatever you need me to.”


	57. Chapter 57

"This session will be the last,” Valyhris is a startling woman. In comparison to all the other elves Rocky has seen since being dragged up here, she is the oldest. White hair, wrinkles, sagging skin, rough voice, gnarled hands and all. Even on the surface Rocky hasn’t seen elves looking this old - even though they’re supposed to be the “quickened” ones.

Actually - Rocky isn’t so sure if Valyhris is even part of these so called immortal ones.

“From tomorrow onwards your lessons will be conducted by the highest Sentinels among the Dread Wolf’s guard,” The woman says, hands folded together on the top of her smooth, pale wooden cane. Her eyes are mostly closed, clouded with cataracts and age.

Rocky takes a look around the room. It’s weird seeing everyone like this - he doesn’t think he’ll ever not think the image of the Chief sitting at a desk idly scratching notes down _isn’t_ weird. Like they’re all enrolled at some fancy academy or something.

The woman takes in a slow breathe and shakes her head to herself.

“I have only a few parting lessons for you - there is much for you to learn, and so short a time for you to learn it. The Wolf’s path is a hard one, and I am sorry that you must walk it,” She slowly turns her head to look out a window. “I would like to begin this lesson with a question for you. Why do you think that there are words for _time_ in a race of supposedly immortal and timeless creatures?”

A damn good question, Rocky thinks. One that he’s heard the Chief ask Dalish in a low voice a long time ago, when the lessons first began.

There’s a general rustling and movement, but no answers, because the Chargers have sappers and mages and strong men and archers, but they don’t have any theologians or scholars the last Rocky checked. And he’s pretty sure that Pavus’ study was more anatomy, considering his whole _necromancy_ thing.

“Perhaps Sir Tethras has an answer,” Valyhris turns her head in Varric’s direction, “Silvertongue?”

“Uh,” Varric’s eyebrows raise, “Flattering suggestion, but no. Writing books isn’t necessarily a result of contemplating words. No. Wait. That doesn’t sound right.”

The woman laughs, and it kind of reminds Rocky of his gran. Before she got black lung. Or was it during black lung? Definitely before _after_ black lung, considering she was dead after that.

“Quite right, I suppose,” Valyhris hums, head returning to face the center of the room. “There is a word for time in our language - and in all of the dialects of it, of which you have only learned the most absolute basic of three: the Wolf’s tongue, the High Wolf’s tongue, and the Canonical tongue. - because the gods are selfish, childish, and entirely too easily distracted and bored egomaniacs.”

Someone drops something. Rocky turns and sees that Krem has jerked to semi-alertness with surprise and knocked his elbow into the table. The Chief straightens up and leans forward, massive frame leaning over the desk as he examines Valyhris in a new light.

Dalish is openly gaping.

Grim is _smiling_. Skinner’s mouth shivers with laughter. Pavus’ mouth has split into an incredulous grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Varric says. “Or you. Or all of us.”

Valyhris snorts. “The reason there are words for time is because a lack of a theoretical end in sight does not mean that there will not be an end created. We count our years because they do, eventually, run out. Because some of us choose to enter the eternal sleep out of sheer boredom. Some out of addiction for what they have found in the dreaming. Others out of disgust, some out of loneliness. The years wear down. For some, more than others. And because our gods are not particularly kind. We have words for time to remember the history of what happened to us - we are currently in the Wolf’s Third Age. A new Wolf has come and gone twice, leaving us with the current incarnation.”

Her hands softly curl over the top of her cane.

“Our gods become tired. Such is their curse. Their gift. Their sacrifice.,” Valyhris seems to draw herself up, and her voice - rough with age, is somehow clear, sharp, crisp like the air just after a decent blast clears debris and rock dust from the air and light manages to get through, “For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, She should see fire an go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword. Andraste’s sermon at the Valarian Fields. Transfigurations, ten one.”

“You know the _Chant of Light_?” Dorian gapes.

Valyhris tilts her head, raising one silver brow, “There are those among us who do nothing but study your Chant of Light and all of its versions and edits and editions over the years. Your Chant of Light perplexes, amuses, baffles, and inspires us. It makes for such interesting reading. Ask the head of your house about it. When she still studied among those of the middle realms she was one of the brightest. Such a shame about her - but that is not part of this lecture.”

“Then _what is_ this lecture about?” The Chief asks.

“We pray to our gods for the same reasons you do. We love them and fear them for the same reasons as you,” Valyhris says, “Because we are afraid of the darkness, the evil, and what it has in store for us. Because it is the gods who save us from it, from the Forgotten Ones. The Forgotten Ones threaten us in our sleep, in our dreams - they call to us from where they have been thrown down by Elgar’Nan and locked into the earth, from beyond the gates of Falon’din and Dirthamen, even as Andruil hunts them and Ghilan’nain sets her beasts upon them. It is only the gods who can protect us from the Forgotten Ones.”

“The Forgotten Ones are the counter parts to the gods,” Dalish explains, “Like Tevinter’s Old Gods.”

“Before Arlathan as you know it today, we existed, but they were dark and chaotic times,” Valyhris says. “Before our gods rose up to vanquish the Forgotten Ones, there was only war and conflict. With the rise of the Sun and the rest of the pantheon, they have brought peace and prosperity.”

“And the consequence? The sacrifice?” The Chief asks.

“The war is eternal, they are always at war with the Forgotten Ones. The Forgotten ones wish to regain their place, to usurp our gods and return to their tyranny,” Valyhris answers. “And so our gods must always be on their guard. Some of them may fall, after a time. After their fights. But they are always reborn, they always return to protect us and to guide us away from the Forgotten One’s evil. And so - for all their petty cruelty, for each of their childish tantrums and whims, we continue to pray to them. For they are all that stands between us and the abyss.”

A knock startles Rocky into kicking his leg against the desk chair and he turns to see it open, revealing a glimmer of armor.

“Sentinel Surana.”

“Elder Valyhris,” A familiar looking woman strides into the room, “Are you finished?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Then I shall say yes, but with one last parting thought, if you would permit me.”

“In the Wolf’s domain everything is permitted if taken,” The woman replies, moving to stand by the windows, feet planted and arms folded behind her back. “Your last words to the First’s household.”

Valyhris takes a quiet, rasping breath and seems to gather herself together. Little rocks being slid into place.

Rocky rubs his knee and waits for it.

“In the days to come you will be taught how to not make fools of yourselves or get killed outright, you will be taught the very basics of survival when walking among the gods,” Valyhris says, “The child who we call First of the Wolf, who is the head of your household - she is still a child. As untrained as the rest of you. As out of her depth as the rest of you. Her teeth have yet to be cut, and all of Arlathan looks upon her to see how she will perform. But do not be fooled.”

Valyhris’ eyes open, the milky color of her old eyes disturbing as she focuses on them.

“That girl is a _wolf_ , she may look like a girl, talk like a girl, act like a girl. _But she is a wolf and she will eat the world raw_ for what has been done to her. The gods are cruel, merciless, villiagos. And they are more so to their own than anyone else. The gods wage war at a higher level than any of us can ever conceive. And you - as the rest of us are - are simply here to play your part.”


	58. Chapter 58

As the woman leaves the room Skinner keeps her eyes focused on Surana. This is a dangerous woman. And she is not reading as the most particularly -

Anything.

Skinner does not think this woman is to be trusted.

“It would have been most fortunate if the Wolf Ascendant could have gone your entire lifetimes without ever having to actually use you,” The woman says striding to the front of the room, speaking before the door even closes behind Valyhris.

The difference between the two is jarring. Valyhris was an old crone, stooped and worn with lines of skin and lines of ink that have faded with time - half-closed with age clouded eyes. She has gnarled hands and walks slowly with her cane. Her hair composes of white fly away wisps that escape the small gathering at the back of her head. And she dresses is warm colored clothes of shawls and skirts.

Surana is an ageless thing, Skinner can tell. She is neither young, nor old. And she stands straight and rigid, the lines of her face vivid against her skin. Crisp. And her eyes are sharply focused like any soldier’s should be. Her hands are hidden behind her back as she stands at the front of the room, the metal of her armor glinting in the sunlight, her hair firmly pulled back and bound.

“Unfortunately, that is not the case,” The woman continues. “From today onwards the Sentinels will take over your training. You will be taught etiquette - the most basic of sort so that you don’t get yourself killed or embarrass your house. You will be taught the finer points of politics - the Ascendant cannot afford for you to be ignorant of who speaks and who does not. And you will be taught purpose.”

Her eyes land on the Chief and Skinner traces her thumb over the line of a dagger’s sheathe down the side of her leg.

“Some of you, at least, understand the importance of a purpose. And finally, you will be taught to defend yourselves against the most basic of attacks. More so than you have already been taught. The Ascendant has been very _firm_ in her orders that your training was to go at _your_ pace, that your instructors up to this point were to cater to _you_. Whatever you have interest in, whenever, to the extent that you can stomach. The Wolf has overridden those instructions in the interest of keeping all of you alive and somewhat whole. As Instructor Valyhris has no doubt already explained to you - time is short. The Gods move. And you must be made ready to soften that blow to your head of house as much as possible for her to retaliate in kind.”

“We’re mercenaries,” Aclassi says, “And you want us to perform feats of politics and diplomacy.”

“I assure you, that if I had any other option I would whole heartedly urge the Wolf and his Ascendant to take it,” Surana’s mouth curls down at the edges like burnt paper, “ _You are the only option we have_. The Wolf and his Ascendant must reap the consequences of their actions.”

“Could we get more background on what we’re walking into, exactly?” Stitches asks, “Some general idea? Politics is no mercenary’s wheelhouse.”

Surana turns to him and nods, mouth leveling out. “It is the upcoming two thousandth anniversary of the Crafter’s Revelation. The Sun has mandated that all of the Evanuris - the pantheon - shall attend with any announced Ascendants.”

Surana pauses here, and snorts, shifting her weight.

“Apparently it is to be a _reunion_ of sorts. The gods have not convened since the Sun ascended some hundreds of years ago. At this gathering there will be those who are curious about the Ascendant. It is common knowledge that the Ascendant was former property of the Raven Twins.”

Skinner feels something in every bone lock into place, and her breath catches in her throat.

“ _She was what_?” Pavus whispers - the sound loud in the sudden silence of the room.

“She was property of the Raven Twins,” Surana repeats, turning to look at Pavus, “Before she ran and sought sanctuary under the Wolf’s banner and was later remade as his First, then Ascendant. There has not been such an upset in the pattern of Ascendancy since the Mother entered her second age. The rest of the pantheon will be curious about her. Some have never met her. Some, as you can imagine, know her well.”

When the Sentinel says _the Mother entered her second age_ , she turns and looks directly at Dalish. Skinner turns, fingers touching the hilt of one of her knives - ready to draw and throw -, and Dalish is a sickly shade of pale but her eyes are hard and give nothing as she stares back at Surana.

Not yet, Skinner thinks, forcing her hand to move.

Ellana was property, Ellana is an escaped slave.

Skinner turns this revelation over in her mind. There is no time to save it for knives and silence. It is something that must be cut open, cut apart and made bare here and now. It is not something Skinner can spend time on.

“She has been made to suffer,” Surana continues, voice lowering - something about her softening. Not ice thawing, but maybe more like wax melting. “The Wolf Ascendant was made to suffer through humiliation, cruelty, and degradation underneath the ownership of the Raven Twins. And it has made her strong. But it has also made her fragile. Easily swayed. Easily frightened. But the Wolf cannot be made to cow before any other. That is not the position of the Wolf.”

The woman closes her eyes and breathes.

“I am not unsympathetic to her. None of us are. Everyone you have met here, every Sentinel, every servant, every merchant, farmer, cook, maid, cooper, smith, tailor, and priest you will ever meet in the Wolf’s territory was at one point or another property. We are all sympathetic to her suffering. But at the same time, the Wolf Ascendant is no longer one of us. She is to be above it if she is to become the future protector of our homes.”

“So what you’re saying is, shit luck,” Rocky says.

Surana raises one shoulder, “Essentially yes. She knew this moment would eventually come for her when she accepted Ascendancy. Barring some incredibly fortuitous upheaval, she would never have outlived the Raven Twins.”

Skinner turns towards the Chief and he is unreadable stone. It’s moments like these when he looks like that that Skinner can almost believe that he is Qun.

Did he _know_?

Skinner turns back to Dalish. Did _she_ know?

“This changes nothing about the job,” He says finally, “We protect her, we get paid. No one dies. What specifics can you give about this gathering? A guest list? A map? A time table?”

“That I can give you,” Surana says, “But whether it helps or not is up to the whims of powers above us.”

“We’ll make it work,” he says, spreading his hands out over the table, “Let’s start.”


	59. Chapter 59

Ellana came back last night, when everyone’s heads were light with revelation and incomprehensible facts, looking pale and haggard. As if she had spent a week full of sleepless nights in the few hours since that morning.

Stitches believed, as she heavily sat down at the head of the table - dark eyes darker with their newfound bruises - with a newfound gravity, that she was -

She was what Sentinel Surana said she was.

Ellana, First of the Wolf and God to be, seems past his understanding. Past anyone’s understanding. Her reasons are the reasons of Kings and Queens, driving by some sort of righteous internal compass that drives them to do whatever their hearts demand of them. They are entirely self-contained in their own world of politics and tongues. Stitches is used to that type. He knows that type, and like Ellana - they are not all bad people.

But the Ellana Sentinel Surana laid out is not that breed. The Ellana that the woman laid out to them was _like them_. Mortal. Physical. Tangible.

Stitches knows that the elven gods bleed but he didn’t realize they also suffered.

When Ellana sat down at the table, there was the gravity Stitches has only seen in soldiers and servants in the way she dropped down. And there was a dark pull in her eyes that Stitches recognizes from anything that has been cut too many times and taken it silently.

“The Sentinels have taken over your instructions,” Ellana had said, voice rough - not screaming rough, but sleep rough. Silent rough. An entirely new person than she had been hours ago, who is also a different person entirely from when they woke up that morning, when they went to sleep the night before, and the hours before that. Stitches wonders if she’s tired because she’s tired of being new.

He half expected someone - Rocky, Pavus, maybe even the Chief - to say something. To ask the question that everyone’s been thinking around like cat paws and glass.

_Is it true? Were you a slave?_

Pavus had been understandably withdrawn and silent all day.

No one asked.

“Tomorrow,” Ellana had said after the oppressive silence of their evening meal ended, “I will take Stitches and Grim.”

“Where?” The Chief asked, the first words spoken to her so far. His voice even sounds _normal_. Stitches supposes that’s the kind of unshakeable quality you get from the elite of the Qunari spies.

“To the middle realms. Wait for me a the main eluvian as soon as you’ve broken your fast,” Ellana answered, and that was that.

Now here Stitches and Rocky stand, waiting for the First among Wolves.

Ellana arrives a new person, again.

Stitches is used to the woman in loose dresses, bare feet, and a wild mess of hair that screams about forests and beasts. He’s used to the woman with bandages along her right arm and leather chords of beads and feathers over her breast. He thinks that’s part of the reason why it is so hard to understand her as something supposedly divine, something supposedly all powerful.

Ellana arrives at the portal with her hair neatly bound wearing the flowing robes and sashes he’s used to seeing on the others. Somehow, without all the other _looseness_ she seems sharper. A concentrated thing. She wears the leggings of the other elves, dark leather that wraps around her legs and disappears underneath the hem of her robes.

And then, there’s the veil. Thick and almost unmoving, a sheet that doesn’t even suggest the slope of her nose or the circles of her eyes, or even the movement of breath. Just a dark green sheet of cloth.

Ellana holds out her right hand, left hand sweeping her sleeve back to reveal more of the same dark material as her hosiery on her arms. In her palm are two simple pendants.

“Illusion charms,” Ellana says as he and Rocky each take one. “No one must see your face. They will know you are human and dwarf, and that will be unusual. But it will not be rare.”

“A dwarf in Arlathan isn’t rare?” Rocky asks.

Ellana’s voice almost hints at a smile, a laugh, when she answers, “In the Wolf’s land there is nothing that is truly rare. Everything is to be had at least once.”

When Stitches puts the charm around his neck he jerks back in surprise. For a second it is as if he was pushed into fog, or a cloud. Everything was muted and dull, the air itself was suddenly heavy in his lungs. And then it cleared again and he felt no different.

They follow her through the eluvian, and the sight of the other side is almost recognizable, now. He knows this portal leads to the Wolf’s main hall and he half expects her to lead them to it. Stitches does not know what the purpose of this outing is to be.

She gestures for them to follow and she heads down a stone paved path.

“Today we are going to look for tokens,” Ellana says as they walk. More paths join wth this one, and through the trees Stitches can see the breaks of depth formed by the other paths. The few people on them who join theirs pause and lower their heads as they pass before moving on their way. “My household has nothing to distinguish them as my own. I felt that rather than have an endless array of trinkets be brought here, I go look for myself.”

“And you asked for us specifically, lady?” Rocky asks.

“Yes,” Ellana replies, “Because I have need of you both.”

“I’d say if you wanted shopping done you’d ask Pavus or Varric,” Rocky points out. “Good shoppers, them.”

“I’m not looking for good shoppers, though,” Ellana replies. “I’m looking for the two of you.”

She turns her head just a bit, and the parts of her skin that he can catch in glimpses are pale. Sickly.

“Rocky, you were banished to the surface because of an experiment, no?”

“That’s what you get for trying to bring change to Orzammar.”

Ellana nods to herself.

“You experiment often. Your tutors have reported back to me about htat. Curiosity and innovation are appreciated and held above most all other things in the realm of the Wolf. I hope the things you see today inspire you in some way, Master Sapper.”

Rocky laughs.

“And me?” Stitches asks, because he may be good at throwing medicinal herbs together on the fly but he’s nothing like Rocky.

Ellana holds out her hand and when Stitches holds out his, she drops a coin purse into it. Stitches waits for her to say something about it but she turns around again. With only a little bit of hesitation, he pockets the coin.

“I need your eyes,” Ellana says as soon as he does, but doesn’t explain further as the path widens out into a large paved clearing. More paths lead here and they’re all bustling and full. There are many eluvians, some active, some not.

Ellana heads towards the largest one - big enough for five people to walk through side by side and room to spare. Everyone close enough to them bows and moves to clear her way. But otherwise everyone else continues to move, though he catches a few pause to lower their heads even as they continue about their business.

“This eluvian leads to the middle realms,” Ellana replies as they wait for the others in front of them to pass through. An odd thing to do, Stitches thinks, for someone of such high rank. “Has anyone explained the difference between here and there to you?”

“It’s where you're lower caste lives, I think,” Rocky says.

“Something like that, yes. The middle realm is where a majority of Arlathan is. Everyone is born in the middle realms. It is where all business, farming, debate, education, and all other forms of occupation occur. Where we are, the higher realm, is where gods do their work. Only a few are allowed to reside here.”

It is on the edge of Stitches’ mind to ask, _so you were born there, too?_

“How did you come to be here, then?” Rocky asks. Stitches almost kicks him.

“If you are good,” Ellana answers quietly, “You are taken.”

And with that, it is their turn to enter the eluvian.

Stitches is absolutely dazed by the colors and sounds - it’s almost like being in Denerim. No, more like Val Royeaux with how fancy and neat everything is.

He can absolutely believe that they came from a temple, now. It had seemed more like a palace, but the finery there is nothing compared to the - the opulence of this place.

There are people everywhere, swarming in throngs. Sounds of all sorts - sounds he didn’t even realized he had missed being in the company of the Sentinels and such. Wheels of a cart, the sound of meat being butchered. Children laughing somewhere. Merchants hawking their wares.

The marketplace sprawls out in front of them, color and sound and smells fanned out so far it makes Stitches’ head spin. He ends up leaning against Rocky a little bit.

“Paragons and Ancestors alike,” Rocky breathes out.

“Flames,” Stitches responds.

Ellana hums, “Come. Before we block the way.”

Stitches and Rocky hurry after her, to enter the river of people and product. He glances back and there are more eluvians lined up next to the one they just exited. And each of them releases more and more people.

“This is one of the entrances,” Ellana says and then points, “There are many entrances to this place and many exits, but they are all positioned in different areas.”

“Can you reach this place from anywhere?” Rocky asks.

“If you’re very clever about it, yes,” Ellana replies. “It may take you three or four, perhaps even five, eluvian trips, but you can get to most of the important places from anywhere. The Wolf’s Temple grounds being one of them. Come. Ask your questions as we walk. I am looking for cloth.”

Stitches knows he should probably be asking questions, but Rocky has more than enough to fill the conversation between the three of them. Sitiches idly thinks that there should probably be guards with them. But he’s seen what Ellana is capable of.

No one really seems to look twice at them, though those who do notice them bow their heads in respect and silence. It isn’t like when a King or Queen goes through the streets, though.

“They think I am a priest,” Ellana says, directing this part towards him.

“Is that what the veil is for?”

“No,” Ellana shakes her head. “That is for something else. They think I am a priest, because they are taught the First and Ascendant are prophets to the gods. Similar to your Andraste. Or one of your Paragons. Here.”

Ellana suddenly cuts through the crowd and moves up the stairs to push open the door of a shop. Stitches glances at the storefront window and sees bolts of cloth hanging over wooden beams, sprays of flowers and strange twisting objects of metal arranged along with them. A woman, presumably the shop keeper work at arranging them, but disappears as Ellana walks in.

Some sort of chime that Stitches can’t see rings as they pass through, and he hears the faint chiming sound - but different. Almost like talking? - from a far corner of the room.

A series of glass chimes hangs, and despite the fact that there’s no wind, they seem to be making sound without even moving. When Stitches looks closer, there isn’t even anything inside the clear glass to make sound to start with.

“Spirit chimes,” Ellana says, “They pass along gossip and messages through magical currents.”

The shop keeper bows to them and moves to come over and tend to them, but Ellana waves her hand and the woman nods and resumes her work at the window.

Ellana goes immediately to the section with blue cloth, and she reaches out to touch her fingertips to the bolts, but otherwise just stands there. Stitches wonders how she sees through the material of her veil. Magic, he supposes.

“Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” Rocky asks. There is nothing particularly interesting about cloth, at least - not to a sapper.

“Stitches, I need your eyes,” Ellana says.

“Yes, lady?”

Ellana turns towards him.

“I want the ocean,” She says softly. “

Stitches blinks and looks around them.

“You want me to pick out one that’s like the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose this one,” Stitches gestures to a wall with dark blues.

Ellana shakes her head.

“Not _any_ ocean,” She insists, “ _The ocean you made for me_.”

Honestly, Stitches doesn’t even remember what he said.

“I want the ocean you described to me. Vast and still like glass, but shimmering and deep. A perfect divide between water and sky - crisp and clean. Up close, a thousand movements a thousand undulations of breath, a thousand storms and ship wrecks and infinite change. But as a whole, steady and silent and solid. A certain roaring in the ears that you still have to strain and focus to catch. Serenity in the abyss. Are any of these that ocean?”

Stitches doesn’t think he’s ever said anything so poetic in his life, but he’s humbled that she got that out of whatever bumbling mess of an answer he gave her when she first asked him about it.

He looks around again, and nothing here really reminds him of the ocean aside from the color _blue_.

“No,” he says.

“Find me the ocean,” Ellana says. “I want the ocean for my house.”

Stitches finds it disconcerting that Ellana would want to base something that would presumably represent her on some half conjured image comprised from Stitches’ shit descriptions. But he does not say no to her request, as impossible and confusing as it is.

He has always been a terrible, terrible fool for a certain kind of suffering.


	60. Chapter 60

She wouldn't scream. Ellana had decided that, before they began their work. She would not scream. She had thought she had enough dignity left for that; that she would not scream.

And in truth, the pain did not truly begin - did not drive her to screaming for a while.

Ellana had lain there on the ground, feeling the grooves of the seals her hahren had carved into the floor, and waiting.

This, she had thought, was not so bad. There was pain, yes, but it was pain she could handle.

He held her hand and with the other he ran his thumb over the soft wisp-like hairs at the crown of her forehead, as if she were a child with a fever he was soothing.

It had not been bad, then. It had hurt; but it was not true pain. Ellana had thought that he was underestimating her, then. She had survived worse, been taught to endure worse, at the hands of the Raven of Deceit.  

He whispered sutras over her. Meant to calm the nerves. Ellana had thought it oddly kind, and a little insulting. She did not need that.

The pain was the opposite of when she had expended her core to the brink - her right hand withered and blackened, the power of the Anchor and the Wolf dormant, sleeping and far away. The movement of her bones and joints felt like glass rubbing against raw over exposed nerves.

The new pain was different. It was as if she were expanding, her marrow burning hot. It was as if someone had taken a sledge hammer to her bones, and cracked them into fine pieces while she was asleep, and the pain was as if many fine tools were picking and pulling out the bone shards; all the while the molten marrow of her clinging to them and being drawn out with them.

It hurt. But it had been tolerable.

In truth, Ellana had begun to relax - mentally. If that had all it had been, she would have been fine.

The true pain did not begin until she started to hear the whispers.

It was like a faint touch, along her shoulder, where she could feel the magic of the wolf crawling and melting its way through her, feeling her out. Searching her out. It felt like whenever Compassion or a wisp would pass by - not quite wanting to stop, but also not wanting to be completely unnoticed either. That is what she thought it was, at first. A stray current of a spirit. But it lingered.

The whispers grew stronger. Almost voices - many voices layered on top of each other. Whispering, chattering, murmuring, hissing, snapping.

Some words were familiar, many were not. She recognized them. Canonical elven. _Old_. Ancient. The language of scholars.

Ellana had tried to pick up the sound - growing closer. It sounded. It sounded _familiar_. The voices, the words - as if they were something she had heard before. In the dreaming, or perhaps even in a dream itself.

And then, softly, something inside of her shifted; the mana of the wolf slowly creeping up her veins, branching out and pooling and settling. And the voices grew loud enough for them to pluck at a memory - _you know them already_ \- and she sees a flash of something: bronze and bloodied at the back of her eyes.

She aims a question at her hahren, _is that us?_

And then, without looking up from where his head is bowed over her hand - how painful it must be for his back, his neck, to be curled over her like this - he thought back at her, _yes_.

As if that were permission, as if her recognition was the key to something - that is when the true pain of apotheosis started.

The Wolf’s mana had reached her ear canal. It had begun to spill over her collar bone, touching the delicate sprawl of her lungs and airway.

The voices, that were not exactly voices - but herself, but him, but them, but _all of them_ \- began to speak to her now that they knew she was listening. And she was all of them.

They remembered, they explored, they recalled.

They watched the mortals with skin and burning vainglory darker than Dorian’s and called to them with their many voices. They laughed in the face of the young, foolish children who would seek to become their betters. They laughed as they dragged them into the darkness, where they were trapped. They sang and called everything into the dark and spat them out to claw at the sky because they made it, and so it shall fall by their hand.

She had tried to pull away, to escape the fast approaching darkness. The blood in her veins had already begun to turn black and dry - harden.

Ellana had, at one point, cracked her skull as she tried to buck, seize, throw off the touch of the dark and forgotten sleepers. Hahren’s cold hand was firm as he forced her head still on the ground. Ellana had tried to claw at her ear. Rip it off. It was as if something alive, something many clawed and many toothed and many legged had forced its way into her ear and was now ripping its way through to her skull. Underneath her skin. Into her chest.

 _No, not yet_ , he had thought at her through the current of their voices, _we cannot waste ourselves so early. Endure it._

What are you waiting for? She had thought back at him. What would you need to wait for?

Underneath the voices, quietly - simply - he had replied. _Restarting your heart_.

Ellana does not remember what happens next so much as she is overtaken by the whispers. The voices that her his voices, her voices, their voices. The Wolves that came before them. And the original Wolf who began it all.

Everything she has ever been taught tells her to resist, to run, to pray, to cry, to beg.

Ellana screams because if she does not scream she will burst. It fills her, it crawls inside of her. It scoops her inside out. Ellana feels herself losing control, she feels left hand scrambling madly at the ground - scratching and catching at her nails. She feels her bowels lose control - she smells the blood, the putrid urine, the dull and loud scent of feces. There is no room to be ashamed. There is only the fear. There is only the understanding that is rapidly approaching to swallow her whole.

The Wolf’s mana, now aware of her - seeing her fully - surges through her hardening and congealing blood to claim her.

With the fading vision in her right eye - she looks at her hahren’s bowed head and knows.

This is the secret of the Evanuris. The one that no one knows. This is what kills the Ascendants, more than the actual change, more than the pain and the physical making and unmaking. It is the _revelation_.

Does Dorian know, parts of her wonder? Do any of them know?

Of course not, she laughs even as she screams. Of course they don’t know.

As it unmakes her, it will unmake them.

Unlike her, they will not be remade. If they knew, they would have nothing left.

As the Wolf’s mana pushes its way through her veins, bursting the vessels in her right eye, she feels their many claws, their many teeth and many eyes, latch onto her mind and pull her down.

 _Remember,_ her hahren’s mind is so far away even though he is so close, _it starts at the beginning. You must survive it to return to your present_.

In the beginning, they remember, _they were the darkness._


	61. Chapter 61

In the beginning there is only darkness, and them. They were the ones to crawl out of the antiquity; out of the ruin and the filth to create the foundations that this wretched and dismal abomination of a gathering roosts on today.

They were the first. They were the creators, the scholars, the dreamers. It was they who mastered magic, it was they who learned how the weak become strong. It was they who mastered how to devour; the art of _being loved_.

To eat and be eaten, the one who is loved and the one who is the lover. It was they who first began to understand, who first began to _see_. To taste. For they loved their children, and who would not want their child to grow strong? Who here, among them would not sacrifice for their child? Not I. Not I. Never I.

And so they began. The cycle of love, the cycle of renewal. Never alone, never dead, never abandoned. The weak were the unloved ones, who had nothing to eat - no one to feed them their knowledge, their magic, their memories, their selves. It was they, the strong, the clever, who endured and were eaten to continue through the years.

They devoured the darkness, and remade it into themselves.

And how were they repaid? Their children rose up. Revolted.

And now, there is darkness. There is nothing to eat. There is no one to eat. There is only the darkness, and them.

But they are still within their children; such is the way of the one who eats and the one who is eaten. The taste remains; remembered, rememory. Their children, for as long as they dream, will always remember the darkness in their hearts. The whispers of their bones.

They look into the face of their horrified children and laugh. Fool of a boy. Perfection cannot be cast aside or diminished. For they are perfect. They are the beginning. They are the end. At the end of all things is them. You will come back to us. You always do.

(An old voice bursts through - scattering their whispers, remnants that have not yet faded, weak -

 _Thank you, my child. Thank you, little wolf. I’m sorry - I am sorry I could not hold on longer for you. I am sorry for the burden I place upon you. My time is over. Be strong, remember who you do this for._ )

They surge up, as they feel something creak in their new chest. A woman, this time. In their memory, the Wolf has never been a woman. This is new. This is interesting. They have never eaten a woman before. They have never been eaten by a woman before. Their perfection now spreads.

Their own hands crack their new woman-ribs and a sputter of something weak cracks in their chest as their mouth descends upon themselves -

“ _Breathe_ ,” Their voice rasps, and a curl of _that is not me, that is not us, who are you? Solas - you are meant to be one of us, why do you stand apart? Why do you stand away? Come to me. Be eaten. Eat me. I wish to be loved by you, do you not wish to be loved in turn? Solas, Solas, Solas, Solas -_ pale gray-blue slides past their lips and wraps around that feeble thing, that almost liquid thing in their new chest and seizes it, hardens it, crushes it and releases -

How long has it been since they have tasted the air of Arlathan? Their other body does not taste it, not truly - does not permit the taste to linger, to stay. The other body is not theirs completely, not yet, but soon. As all things are in time, it will become theirs. Eaten.

The call of themselves sings from the other body’s chest, and they surge up, teeth sharp as they try to eat. To love.

The other body should have nothing left, just them, just the remains of eating.

Their male body bars its arm across their new female throat and pushes down and away. More of Solas’ energy shocks through the skin, digging and curling as they are pushed back. Thwarted.

They keen - insolent child, _we are the one who made you. You ate us to be born. Why can we not eat you? We are always eating ourselves -_

Ellana gasps, the world sharpening into focus and blurring around the edges. Hahren’s face flickers into view - blood dried down his nose and bursts of red at the corners of his dark eyes -

“No,” Ellana gasps, because it isn’t true. It isn’t.

He quickly releases pressure on her throat and she sees that blood has splattered and dried down his chin. He quickly wipes at his own face -

 _To love is to be eaten, to love is to eat_ , the whispers repeat within her. The universal truth that gave brith to Arlathan.

“No,” Ellana rasps again before her hahren forces her head to turn to the side and her body clenches up, hot, viscous liquid pushing itself out of her mouth and past her jaws. Red and strange brown-black-pink splatters and congeals on the floor. Solid. Not liquid.

“Your body is being remade,” He says, “The Wolf is remaking you.”

“No,” Ellana gags out because she can feel it. She can feel her organs - as the Wolf’s mana spreads - she can feel them being broken down and ripped apart fiber by fiber by grain by grain. She can feel them being pushed out. She can feel the new things growing in their place.

“Allow it to remake you, you will be strong for it. The other Evanuris will fear you for it. But do not let it take your mind,” He commands, “ _Remember yourself. Remember your suffering. Remember who you do this for.”_

The Wolf’s mana surges, a sharp spike that seems to burn straight through Ellana’s skull - as if someone had jabbed a hot poker into her brain. She screams, body arcing as much as it can and she hears the echo of her scream in her hahren’s deeper voice -

And with that, Ellana is sucked down again and they sneer because of course they do it for _you_. Always for you, endlessly for _you, ungrateful -_

They raise their arms to the blue sky that seems lower now. Tan arms. Strong arms.

And the crest of their power sings low in their belly. Male bodied again, yes. They remember this. They are remembering this.

They laugh because they have done it. They have triumphed, they have raised the Veil and they turn to their child. Their new pup of a boy, and he smiles back - delight and awe in his gray-blue eyes and they raise their arms for him.

“Solas,” They say, “It is done. The people can be free - “

Horror flies across the boy’s face and they feel the triumph slip from their fingers -

A rip in the Veil. They turn and scream with anger, outrage -

Fear.

They turn to their child, and he reaches for them and they feel their own power well up in their stomach. They cannot have him. They will not take their child. No one can eat this child but them.

They would eat him raw sooner - and they push everything they are through the frail, thin strip of a bond between them. This body to their child’s - quickly, before the others eat them whole. Before they are eaten by the wrong thing -

“ _Hahren!”_

( _Take it - Solas, I am sorry - the burden you will bear. Survive. Endure. For the people. For our people. Remember why we began this work - )_

Ellana surges forward as hahren’s mouth clamps down on hers, the frozen chill of his mana pushing through her and curling around her spine and holding it in place, putting the shards of it back together.

Her heart screams with loss - she cannot see. It is all white, blinding with no color and every color.

The memory of being unmade all at once. The memory of being remade in mere moments. Ellana’s breath refuses to come and hahren curses.

“How?” Ellana squeezes out. Ellana is barely scraping through being remade part by part. She can feel her stomach cavity sinking, deflating. Burning. She can feel the acid leak onto her other organs as the sludge of it starts to push up through her chest - her raw and newly formed gullet. Down, down, through her bowels, ripping as it goes. Eating as it leaves.

Hahren was undone and remade entirely within moments.

“Remember who this is for,” He says as Ellana pushes her stomach out through her mouth. His hands shake on her skin as Ellana’s blood-tinged vision fades in and out.

 _It is alright,_ Ellana wants to say through the shock, through the whispers. She can go on. She will go on.

It doesn’t matter, Ellana realizes, if she says it or not.

They cannot stop now.

Ellana feels something in her give - slip.

And her heart - that feeble thing they have been trying to eat, trying to remove, to dissolve, to perfect, begins to - finally - give way.

They sing in their newfound veins.

This is love.

To be eaten. To eat.

_Do you understand?_


	62. Chapter 62

Ellana wakes, tired beyond belief, and bitter beyond bearing.

Is she awake? The memory of reliving being unmade and remade, eaten and eating, - the memory, the recollection, the living, the experience, the past and the future and the now - have all collided in her head. She is all of them, she is all that have ever been. She is every single suffering, every single sin.

So much sorrow and hatred behind the name Fen’Harel.

Ellana feels so raw, and they are so incredibly -

She turns to him, her other self who is not her other self -

Their other self was taken, many years ago. The Raven Twins were always bitter creatures, how could their grudge stretch so far? She is not the Wolf that hurt them all those lives ago, all those feasts ago. Were they not blood once? Did they not taste victory together at a time?

She turns to him, the Wolf who is Still the Wolf, and she is not yet the Wolf, but someday -

She reaches for him without moving. He looks so used, so old. She remembers becoming him, she remember eating him, and being eaten by him. She remembers when she first saw him, they remember the bright spark of rebellion in his eyes and the laughter that threatened to spill from their mouth but it wasn’t yet the time or place so they just smiled. But even then this one was clever and his eyes sparkled back and he was so painfully young, even when he was eaten - he was not yet ready.

He tasted so cold. So frightened.

He did not know that this, too, was love.

They tried to eat him, even after he had been eaten, and they could not permit that, and the result is that he has been eaten and drawn out for far too long -

“She forced you to your knees,” They croak out, Ellana had always known this story. Everyone knows this story. The Dread Wolf was made to be the lover of the Huntress, until he escaped. Ellana, and all of the slaves of the Keeper of Secrets - and any other slave from any of the other gods high enough in favor or rank - knew the truth. The Huntress has desired to conquer the Wolf for as long as they can remember. It is in the Huntress’ nature, to conquer, to claim.

The Halla Mother, the Dread Wolf. The Huntress wants one in each hand. The one who is beholden, the one one who is unchained. The Huntress desires the wild creatures, the tame and unbroken. But that is the meaning of being the Wolf, being wild and unfettered and loose.

They are not meant to be tamed.

It is not their purpose - and that is why they walk the line, the voices whisper to Ellana. Calmer, quieter, less of a demanding, exploring surge through her veins, rather a deeply gorged river that’s swallowed its banks. Her breath rattles in her lungs, small and still growing. Raw with newness. All of it, raw with newness.

Their many memories, their many thoughts, their many selves swarm underneath her skin; but for now Ellana floats to the surface, buoyed by the cold and waning cold blue that he breathes into her to keep her heart moving.

Ellana’s body is warm, loose, electric - she cannot move it, she cannot remember how, but it opens anyway, unfurls, because it wants. It desires. It wants to eat. It wants to be eaten. It wants the world raw and bleeding. It wants to be raw and bloody. She can feel herself unspooling, a thousand threads that are held together, barely.

They still have an arm, two legs, and the entire left side of this face and neck to go before her body is finally ready to accept all of it. To eat.

“Yes,” Solas croaks, shame and resignation and the taste of memory that both of them feel underneath the surface. Now shared.

“Never again,” They crack, pushing their will to force the eyes of their bodies to meet. To understand. “Never again.”

The rage filters to the front of their, her, mind, pushing at their temples. They are the Wolf. They are wild things, dark things. They are that which hunts, which eats. Of all of the weak, watered down and infertile pissants that call themselves their equals now, they are the purest of them all. They are the ones who eat. They are always the ones who eat. They are the ones who are eaten. The others do not understand what that means. They have never been eaten as they.

The rage pushes through and Ellana’s fist uncurls from where it had seized the leather chords of magic around his throat without her understanding, and she is pushed down by the invisible weight of anger and shame.

Ellana remembers. Solas remembers. They wait.

She wakes, and the rage has not passed, but something else has been brought forward.

I remember seeing you, Solas thinks, I remember seeing you and -

I know what you remember because I was there too, Ellana says. And now I was you when we were there, and now you were me when I was there and now perhaps you can understand.

They do not say these things out loud.

Ellana turns her face to him. He is lying down on the ground, over the dried remnants of her mortality, next to her, hand pressing her Anchor - clean and precise, purposeful - to his - jagged, misshapen, rushed. His lashes flutter as his eyes open, mirrors of her own.

“It was you,” Ellana whispers, the words sounding garbled. Her lips refuse to move properly. Weakness, delirium, pain, numbness - she can’t tell why. It doesn’t matter. The memory surfaces in all of their minds and every voice slows to a murmur, every moment and thought slows to watch this exchange pass through them.

“Yes,” He answers. He does not apologize.

Ellana feels herself shrinking down and away.

“I made you kneel,” Ellana says, or thinks, or understands.

“Yes,” He says.

Ellana wants to look away. She wants to look anywhere but at him. She wants to cry.

This memory that they have not spoken of, this - this shame that both of them have denied, long before Ellana even knew of the Huntress and the unmaking. This - this humiliation she brought forward upon them without knowing.

“Never again,” Ellana promises.

“Neither of us could have known,” He says, using his free hand, to cup her cheek. She does not feel it, but he lets her feel it from his palm for a second - the memory-sensation passes through the Wolf to the both of them before he cuts it. “Not even the Crafter knew of what trick that the Secret Keeper played.”

Ellana feels herself being pulled away again, pulled down. The new memories fighting, swarming to sweep her away again. The many faces and voices of the Wolf curl around her mind, around the fine nerves or her spine and her chest. She no longer feels pain, if there is any. Perhaps she will never feel again.

It would not be so bad, Ellana thinks.

(But Ellana remembers what comes after this. They are not yet finished with their body. There is more to be done.)

Ellana curls down, and sinks into the black of the many makings and unmakings, into the darkness of their beginning.

The horror of the realization of what they are has faded - they have done this thrice, now. The confusion and the recoil will wait.

Ellana does not apologize for bringing them to their knees. They do not ask her to.

This, too, is love.


	63. Chapter 63

They wake, and all is silence. Their body, their mind, their selves: all of it silence. Everything is muted.

Their body feels unbalanced, incomplete - as if part of it were real, and the other part imagined. When they move, the parts that are real are stiff, cracking and grinding like thick slabs of stone that are being pushed together; it feels unwieldy and cumbersome. At the same time airy - not quite raw - but liquid.

They try to turn their head to look down at themselves, but a hand stops them, touching their chin and turning their gaze upwards.

Gray-blue-black-green-everything-them looks into their eyes.

They part their lips, searching for the rest of themselves. Out they unspool, a thousand searching threads into the air as they exhale with hunger. Where is the one who loves them? Where is the one they eat?

The threads catch and cold, cold, quiet - a stillness of an age - and start to pull, start to unravel that which must be the thing that loves.

A hand closes upon their lips, cutting them -

“Not yet,” A voice says, and they echo with the loss. They try to move the hand, try to form power and force to move it.

Something around them holds them in place.

A memory.

“A seal made of the Wolf’s mana,” The voice that denies them love says and the many-mirror-self eyes glance downwards, “To deflect the Wolf’s mana. Ellana, if you wish to cast against me you will have to do it of your own will. Find it.”

But who is Ellana?

They stare into the eyes that are themselves that are the ones who's should love and allow them to eat -

Blood flecks across the skin of the one who loves, dried underneath their nose and lip, sweat across their skin, dampening their lashes.

“You are in there, da’vhenan,” They say, “I know you are. You have come too far, stood up against too many, to fall to this. I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could give you more answers. For now you must listen to me, wherever and whenever you are.”

The hand moves from their mouth, and they attempt to move forward, to chase it, to taste the lingering touch of self that echoes -

“No,” The hand stops them, presses against their chest - over that place that is real and heavy and liquid all at once. “I am not you. I have never been you. You will find yourself in here.”

They raise their hand, the one that feels not-quite real and press it against their very real chest. The skin is hard, they look down and this time they are not stopped.

They can see - the skin is not skin. The body is not body. It is not flesh. But it is not, _not_ flesh. It is every color. It is no color at all. It is clear and opaque. It is like liquid crystal - and the colors that their body will be lie underneath in glimpses. A touch of the color or flesh here, a touch of blood there, a glimmer and flicker of bone. They look to their other hand, the real hand that barely moves as they try to raise it and examine the way that their Anchor moves, flows. No longer static, but awake. Considering. Consuming.

“Yes,” The self that is not their self says, “The Wolf has already eaten most of you, now it rebuilds and perfects. When it is done you will be newer, better, stronger. Not even the remains of the Raven’s vallaslin will be with you.”

The words pang hard against something in their mind and they recoil, a sound grinds out through their closed mouth - their lips do not part.

They touch their chest and feel the not-skin of it, and push their fingers into it. Feeling. Examining. Learning.

Where is their self? Who is this body? Is this the one who is loved?

They push, searching, until the hands of the one who loves stops them as skin begins to dent and thin and almost part.

“Not that way,” He says and they look up slowly, slowly. “We are running out of time. I will prepare you. Listen while I do. I know you are still looking for yourself, I know you are not quite coherent, I know that you are not confused - simply blank. I know you are trying to place where and when and who you are in context to what has been forced upon you. But you must listen and try, in part, to keep something of what I tell you in your memory. We must leave for the Crafter’s ceremony before dawn. It is currently just past midnight.”

The one who they are beginning to place as elder, teacher, protector, _hahren_ \- the word sings true in the parts of them that are and are not real. Their whole - bends down and lifts them up, one arm under their not-real knees and another supporting their mostly real back.

“The majority of the Wolf I directed at you was corrupted,” He says, “The Forgotten. We, the Wolf, have always had more of the corruption in us than the other Evanuris.”

The feel-taste-sensation-memory of water as he lowers them into a tub: hot, clear. They raise their hands, slowly, learning the feeling again. They compare the real - the new, the being renewed, the novel - to the not-real - the old, the flesh, the scarred. Their fingers spread and the water flows through them. Are they like water? Is that who they are? They try to match the song, the silence, the pause, the dance of the water, and feel themselves sliding, slipping, singing away -

“You are not water,” Hahren says, and they must not be. They stop. “I gave you the corruption, the darkness, first because it will keep you safe from the others. When they realize what is in you, they will be afraid. They have always been afraid of us. The first of the Evanuris wanted at least one of them to have more within them - to watch, to guard, to seek, to hunt. A dog to hunt the wolves. The idea - well. It turned out that we got the better end of it after all.”

His kneels at the edge of the tub, taking a cloth and wetting it - taking her not-real arm and begins to clean the skin - her? skin. They watch, they listen. They try to find the rest of themselves, what that self is. Who are they?

He is them, but he is also not theirs. He is the Wolf. Are they, too, the Wolf? No. They are not the Wolf. He is also not the Wolf who is them, not entirely. Their mind curls inwards on itself, an infinite loop of thought and wandering.

“They are unbalanced, the corruption takes them harder. Faster. We have it, we use it, we control it and mediate it rather than deny it entirely and allow it to fester,” He continues. They watch as the water, once clear, muddies with blood and excrement, dried skin that’s sloughed off with every pass of his hand over their - her? - body. Up and down their arm, their chest. Their back. They close their eyes, open them again, quietly, wondrously as he reaches down into the water and coaxes them to raise their legs.

Who did this for him when he was new?

The memory threatens to drift forward.

Both of them push it away.

“We have our own power of course,” He continues, “The Wolf’s power is not entirely that of the Forgotten ones. It is just that we walk between. Our darkness is balanced out by our light. We are stable. The longer the other Evanuris deny their roots, the source of their power, the more - well. You’ve seen them. You remember them.”

Yes, they think. Yes.

Power hungry, paranoid, mad, selfish, cruel, insular, hungry - yes. They remember.

A flash of another memory, one that belongs entirely to the self that is this body that is this incarnation that is the one who is loved. They are sure that she is it.

She calls the vaguest outline of the memory forward and suggests it to his mind.

He nods.

“Yes. The Ravens are two that work to become one. They are doubly as unbalanced. That is why they have the most changes of all the other Evanuris.” He looks at her, now and she looks into him and tries to call forward her pain, her anger, her hate, her fear. They slip away in a current of silence. He raises his hand to cup her cheek, wet. She feels his fingers over puckered, swelling, swollen, blooming, budding flesh. She can feel it, underneath the flesh that is not flesh.

“Not yet, do not use that power yet,” He says, “You must wait for that. Wait for me to give you a signal. You are not yet ready. You destroy us both if you use it.”

She retreats from the feeling of the horizon at her jawline as he coaxes her into opening her mouth.

She feels something scrape against her cheek. Grind.

It should hurt, she thinks.

He hums and clicks his tongue, and reaches away out of her sight and his hand reappears with his finger metal coated - a thimble. His finger slides into her mouth and gently rubs against the sharp grinding place.

He remembers this part. She remembers this part from many, many lifetimes ago.

The teeth are sharp for eating, but the gums are not yet ready for the fangs of a wolf.

“If they try and hurt you again,” He says softly, “If they try to touch you. They will see that you have begun Ascendancy in earnest, that you are already initiated past the Anchor, that your body has already begun to change. Your mind. And they will be afraid. I am old. I am tempered. They know me and what I am capable of. You are new - raw. Unshaped. You have a stronger connection to the progenitors than any of them, any of _us_.  If they push you, you could pull at the corruption within them. You could hurt them.”

He removes his finger from her mouth and there is no sharp grinding when he coaxes her into closing it.

“I wanted to give you the joy and the freedom, da’vhenan,” He says quietly, softly, sadly, raising his hands to her hair to work soap into it. “I wanted to give it to you slowly, in a way you could understand. I wanted to explain it to you, show you how it all came together. I did not want to rush it like this. To rush you. But it is the only way I can keep you safe.”

She raises her hand and touches the Anchor on his chest that was once her anchor on her own chest. Their chest, their Anchor, their life.

His death. Her beginning.


	64. Chapter 64

She sits, watching as the light changes in the new room that they are in. It is a familiar room. She remembers it - from this life, the one before, the one before that, and even the one before that one. The body that lives in it has changed, the trees and the ornaments have changed, but it is still the same room. She sits on the bed that was once and will be her bed, the cloth of her veil alive beneath her fingers.

She watches the one she recognizes as _hahren_ and _Solas_ disappear as he prepares himself. Piece by piece the one she understands as the one who loves is hidden, pushed down, smothered. His skin is clean from the exertion of reliving his own change through her. She watches as he lines his eyes with dark kohl, the blue-gray of his eyes sliding more into something green and unnameable.

Will she, too, disappear like that?

She slowly, slowly, lowers her eyes to try and glimpse at herself underneath her cool, heavy robes of silk and fur and enchanted leather. What is she meant to look like, at all, aside from Wolf?

The coil of her hair at the back of her head is heavy, the memory of hahren’s hands dutifully putting every strand into place and securing it with fine pins and ornaments of bone and cold serpentine calls to mind something else.

“Yes,” Hahren says, his voice not yet put away to become Wolf, “I did that for the Third. His hair was heavy, and he was always very vain about it.”

The words ring true, resounding like a bell in her - in the vast pool of black memories that she has not yet truly completed understanding, remembering. But no - that is not what she was remembering.

She remembers this image - the kohl around his eyes, the layers he slowly draws on over his shoulders, the fine knots he ties in his numerous sashes - but it was not his hands.

They were hers?

“Yes,” He says again, “The last time we dressed like this - it was when I went to the Crafter’s.”

Her stomach abruptly kicks, churns, tempests inside of her already liquid body. She can feel her body begin to darken, clouds on her horizon and she hears him take in a slow breath.

“It is in the past,” He says.

The clouds do not abate within her and she feels the crystal of her new and true self begin to burn. Through her right eye she sees faint after images of memories, of fantasies - of that moment in the Crafter’s chamber, the floor as she-he-they went onto their knees in supplication. She sees other things, too. And the swollen promises that line the right side of her face hum with what those other things could be.

“Da’fen,” She raises her left eye up, the right eye fixed on what is promised - the illusions that aren’t. “Do not look. You must not look.”

But it is so hard to _not_ look when it is in her line of sight. How does one ignore a fluttering at the edge of their vision? A hand being waved in front of their face? How does one look past it?

The whispers of herself that are not herself that are the Wolf and are also not the Wolf pull at the stray threads of her, fraying her thin as they lead her into the dark, into the sleeping veins of the earth, into the evaporating sky. She is everywhere, and there is everything to see.

“Focus.”

 _On what? On who?_ She thinks, trying to pull parts of herself back. To what? This body? But what is this body?

“Cast yourself out, look for that which sings true to you. Turn to those who hold you, who have held you,” He says.

So she does, she turns her eye to try and catch the scent of herself somewhere, somewhen.

“They wait for you, your household,” He says, “Do you feel them?”

 _No_ , she thinks, but stretches herself beyond these walls, pushing the fingers of her mind at the edge - bind, wary. Far away something flickers, as if to call her. She waits for it to flicker again. It is faint.

She casts herself towards it.

In the hair and heart of a woman - she traces the planes of the face, drifts in the air to shape the breath of this woman, mapping her, learning her - there is a flicker of something that stretches thin through her bones and her core. Like shots of different colored thread. And in her hair which is bound in a way that is familiar - a memory, now, more recent. This memory comes from inside, not from whispers or from distant, distant threads, but close. Infinitely closer as she focuses herself onto this woman. A memory of hands, these hands, in that fair hair.

There is a cloth that is not blue but not black, not green but also not white, not purple and not indigo. All of them, deep like glass and sharp like serpentine - unrefined and raw. She brushes a touch of her unspooled self against it and it cracks against her -

She gasps in a breath, and tastes - _familiarity_.

Not cold like Solas. Not even the rushing push of the Wolf that is every color and nothing at all and every single taste of love against the lips.

No.

This is _familiar_.

She takes it in, feels it, examines it, pushes herself through it like a sieve and emerges whole and untainted. Memories bubble to the frothing surface as a name is spelled into her mind, the letters dropping to create sounds that are familiar. The taste of this color is like a sharp crack against her back teeth, a whip against her tongue that leaves everything not-quite-stinging but singing jagged but soft.

 _Lavellan_ , the name appears and it calls many things forward that match that crack, but does not create it fully. More like - a part of it.

Lavellan, the name repeats. Is that her name? Is she Lavellan?

She feels her brows furrow.

The name rings, not in tune to the singing in her. It is a name that was - part of her? A cause of her? A shaper of her? But it is not her name. She is not Lavellan.

She thinks this at her hahren for confirmation - she is not Lavellan.

“Lavellan is part of who you have become today, but you are not Lavellan. You have not been Lavellan for a very long time. In your heart, you have not been Lavellan for long before you cast the name off.”

That sounds better.

But she hesitates, pauses - because the name Lavellan pulls at another and that other -

It is not her name. She knows it instantly. The name that spells itself is not her name, but it was once her name, she knows. She knows this name more than everything and she threatens to shake apart with the memory of it. She feels her body tremble, she feels it as the darkness threatens to return, to overcome, to drag her down into the abyss once more.

Hahren calls for her but she shuts herself to him.

The name that is every name, that is behind everything - the name that was once shared with her. The name of everything that was meant to be and should have been.

Taken, whisked away, snatched - gone.

Was it love? Was that also love, when they took him back? When they kept him from her? When they keep him from her?

“No,” The Wolf’s voice cuts through - and she opens her eyes to the here and now and looks at him. Hahren entirely put away, the Wolf in his place. He stands in his fine robes and sashes and furs, perfect beyond reproach. He comes forward and takes the Veil from her hands, voice firm and deep and everyone at once, “They did not do it because they loved you. They never loved you. They will never love you. What they did to you was cruel and without reason.”

She tucks that understanding away as she traces the color that is like deep sonorous glass. This woman - and this man, here. This man has it, too, in his core. And folded and just barely peaking out of his robes is the same material. This man - she brushes his face and creates it in her mind. She knows this man. The features and the color of his skin - yes. The men they whispered to, the men they called to, the men they pushed through to enter into this world again - No.  Younger. Better. More gold underneath the bronze, more bone. She knows this man.

And here - another with that same color of cloth that glitters with the taste of a crack against the teeth. And here, and here.

She looks at the color and tries to name it, and a voice from a memory so fresh she can still see and taste it perfectly bursts to the surface of her clouds.

Her voice? _I want the ocean_.

Many colors, many sounds, many bolts of color - and yes, here. The cloth that is the color of the ocean the man who wears the cloth tied around his neck - she held it in her hands and she poured everything of herself, that shock against the fangs, into it.

This is her house.

And suddenly she wants to know - she wants to see. She wants to see them in person, she scrambles for their hearts, their names, the memories of them that must surely be within her.

At the same time, she casts more of herself out of her body, a thousand lines, a thousand hands and eyes as she holds onto the scent of what has her -

She traces their pulses and the images their blood makes. She tastes sweat and weariness, anxiety and nerves. For what? Why? Who? When?

She turns the pages of time, running after the threads of them they have left behind. Here, the man with her colors around his upper arm is pushed down by a Sentinel during a sparring match  - creating that bruise on the outside of his left knee. And here - the woman with her cloth wrapped around the sheathe of a knife - she manages to tuck and roll to avoid a hit by her sparring partner - him a man with her square of ocean - who’s hands ache from practiced sword and shield swings.

She follows them, through their sleep and their lessons, she examines their faces and their pupils and the part of their lips and the shift of their bones under skin as she races through their time.

And here, she trips, she pauses, she breathes slowly.

Here is the man who has tied her cloth around his belt, as he stares into the depths of what was once her room - what is her room - and is silent. Here is the man who’s heartbeat she can slowly recall the taste of. She traced this heartbeat in the night before. She knows this one.

She knows him.

A flick of pale blue-green that has a dry rustle like paper and corn fields and gold wheat -

 _Hello_.

She curls around it - pushing through and pulling it apart and watching as it pulls together. She runs the taste of it through her mouth.

Compassion.

 _Yes_.

The Wolf arranges the veil over her face.

“This,” His hand ghosts over her shoulder, her chest, her arm. “This is your first and last defense. Use it carefully. Have you found yourself?”

_I found them, I am not Lavellan but they who were Lavellan shaped me.  I cannot return to that name which was taken from me. You are Solas. You are the Wolf. Am I you?_

“The Wolf will someday be you, but you will never be the Wolf.”

She turns this statement over. Yes.

“We do not have time for you to gather all of yourself,” He says, “We must leave. This will do. You will have to gather as much as yourself on the way. Come.”

He takes her hand and she stands.

I know who I am, she thinks at him as he tries to pull her into walking after him.

“Who are you?” He asks.

I am an ocean, she thinks at him.

He pauses, considers her, and then smiles.

That will do, he thinks. “Rise.”


	65. Chapter 65

Here is another place that is new. Dalish’s body is sore and her mana feels stretched thin, nerves and anxiety. Almost a full week since Ellana was last seen. Almost a full week of learning in the most basic of politics and history and custom with the Sentinels, almost a week of being trained in their simplest and most elementary of drills.

Around fifty or so Sentinels are in attendance, gathered around the gilded carriages that are to take the Dread Wolf and his Ascendant through the eluvian to the gathering of the Crafter. To the site where an entire hecatomb of force-shifted elves bearing the name of Lavellan were killed.

This is Dalish’s secret, one she can’t quite find the steel to put a voice to. The others think that Ellana will suffer because she will be brought forward to her previous Master.

Dalish knows otherwise - Ellana, First of the Wolf, does not care if she is seen by her former Master. It is not that she was once slave to the Raven of Deceit that frightens her, that made her want to run again, that makes her turn to bone underneath the crushing tide of her skin. It is what that Master has done, it is what he is still doing, that shakes her foundations.

The ribbon saturated in Ellana’s mana, strung through bone and serpentine, in Dalish’s hair is a comforting thing, like the breath that Ellana slipped through Dalish’s lips and through her bones. Dalish turns to find Skinner - her hair bound like Dalish’s for once. It is strange seeing Skinner like that. Like this, with the styling of the Wolf on her. It seems strange, and it kicks Dalish in the chest harder than anything else in the world. Dalish’s hands fidget to hold onto something, someone.

The Chief’s hand descends on her shoulder - and Dalish wonders if Pavus has thought of what message to send yet. What to say, and to who. She wonders if he’s even been able to think of it - the smallest piece of the truth of Ellana’s origin has him rattled, off kilter. Unbalanced.

Slavery isn’t so bad until you realize how ugly it leaves someone, is it, Pavus?

It isn’t fair of her to feel so _pleased_ over how shaken he is. What can she expect from Tevinter? A Tevinter Altus?

She turns to look up at him, and somehow - despite how all of them have changed because of this, despite how they all look different in their elven styled clothes, speaking the tongue of the Wolf, saturated in the bitter and violent glory of Arlathan - he looks exactly the same as the day she first met him and signed her contract to work with the Chargers. She wonders what she looks like in his eyes.

How has she changed?

Does he still love her, in that way he loves all of the people he draws underneath his care? Is she still the same Dalish to him? Would he have asked her to sign that contract, knowing what he does now? Seeing her as she is?

He looks down at her. Same eye patch. Same horns. Same scars. Same refusal to wear a proper shirt. New weapons. New styling to his leathers and the buckles of his new armor. And underneath it all, the same steady constant pillar of truth. Things are simple when the Chief makes them to be. And Dalish desperately wants him to make her simple again.

How easy it was to be _Dalish_ before, no problems, her secret just one secret that would never compromise her. Dalish the mage who pretends to pass as an archer without really trying. What a simple woman.

His hand is steady, comforting as he draws his palm over her shoulder, back and forth, face lifting up to survey the rest of them. They do not know what to expect when the Dread Wolf and Ellana return.

She remembers Varric asking one of the Sentinels about what was happening to her.

In their experience, the ones who strive to become gods do not necessarily even come close.

(Dalish had wondered, then, if the gods are so jealous of their power, why they allow Corypheus and the Maker and Andraste and the Old Gods and the Paragons and the Ancestors to be spoken of, to be unchallenged. And she had wondered - do all prayers fall on deaf ears that not a single one of the pantheon has moved to act against the Blight, against Corypheus, against the many wars that shake Thedas?)

Sentinel Huron had looked at Varric and said simply, _The birth of gods is a private affair, one day she was mortal and fallible and imperfect as the rest of us, the next she will be the Wolf. You might as well ask me what the two moons do when we do not see them._

Dalish sees the Sentinels - in full armor, each face silent and stone in ways that make her feel like she is looking at golems instead of the people she has come to _know_ over the past week or so - straighten to attention, and Pavus starts. Dalish feels the blossoming of the eluvian awakening.

They turn as Sentinel Surana announces, “The Dread Wolf enters. The Ascendant of the Wolf enters.”

The man who is the Dread Wolf walks through the eluvian - and Dalish does not think she will ever truly - truly _understand_. Her eyes see him, but her mind cannot. He looks familiar, like a face caught in a dream - one half conjured, half real, half imagined, put together from many memories. And the sound of his voice tugged faintly at her memory.

She knows him.

The Dread Wolf walks through the eluvian, the same black black pelt drawn over his shoulders, the head of a black Wolf with glittering gems for eyes over his head, hiding his face. The many layers of his robes and tunics glide through the air, deep greens and faded pale leathers.

And at his arm, Ellana.

White, white, white.

Her face is covered by a veil that does not even suggest a face. The veil is long, thick, solid like a wall between her and the world, and it hangs to her waist. Does she breathe, Dalish wonders. It does not move, does she even have breath?

Ellana wears simple white robes that cover her entirely, the sleeves billowing out to hide her hands, and the opening of the robes as she walks reveals a sheathe of white gossamer in many layers, the shape of her legs and feet glimpses. Her hair is coiled about her head, with a thin layer left hanging down.

The Dread Wolf stops, and turns his head towards them and Ellana’s head seems to follow.

He removes her hand from his arm and Ellana seems unbalanced for a moment, lost, before she drifts over to them. Silently. Impossibly - as if she weren’t moving at all, but being pushed towards them on wheels.

Ellana stops in front of Dalish, passing through the rest of them like a ghost.

Ellana’s hands slowly emerge, as if blooming from the ends of her sleeves - white gloves.

Dalish takes her hands and suddenly Ellana comes to life, seizing Dalish’s hands in her own and squeezing so hard it hurts. There is no sound, no flutter of breath, from beyond the veil.

Dalish stares at the wall of unbroken white and tries to either pull her hands back or properly squeeze back.

Something cracks against the back of her mind, tasting like something brilliant - snow and lightning, the sound of waves crashing against each other instead of rocks. The break in a sheet of glass water.

“First?” Dalish whispers.

A name whispers across her mind, too faint, too far away for Dalish to catch.

“Lady?” Dalish whispers and the Iron Bull rises behind her.

“Boss,” He says, and Dalish’s hands are shaking from how tight Ellana squeezes them.

“Ascendant,” The Wolf says from the direction of the carriages. But Ellana continues to squeeze, slowly drawing Dalish in closer, closer. The Wolf clicks his tongue and commands - “Bring her.”

And the Sentinels descend, hands on Ellana’s arms, pulling her back and away as they break their hands apart. Dalish finds herself reaching, trying to hold on, and though Ellana remains silent something in Dalish’s mind tries to _latch_. A thousand threads trying to spin themselves around her.

“Ellana?” Dalish asks, and the threads try to cling all the harder, but snap once their hands are parted.

Ellana’s hands retreat into her sleeves slowly, as the Sentinels lead her away towards the Wolf.

Ellana keeps looking back at her, though, not once looking away. Not even as they raise and push her into the carriage. Ellana’s continues to look at them, at her.

The faint impression of words continue to try and press against Dalish’s mind, trying to make themselves known and clear.

Dalish’s hands tingle as blood rushes back into them - and with something else. Something faint, familiar through another understanding she can’t place.

“Let’s go,” The Chief’s voice is dark, magma underneath the surface. He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like any of this.

Dalish swallows, throat dry as Ellana tries - once more, one final time - to throw her thoughts into Dalish’s sight.

A white hand presses against the window of the carriage as it begins to move, as the other Sentinels begin to mount their stags, as the Chargers move to join them.

Dalish’s heart pounds in her chest as she forces her feet to move.

The words clear, a flash of lightning across the shifting glass of the night waters.

 _Protect them_.


	66. Chapter 66

Objectively, Bull knew that all of Arlathan couldn’t look the same. Just like all of Thedas doesn’t look the same. Antiva looks different from Nevarra, Nevarra is different from Orlais, Orlais is different from Ferelden, so on and shit.

But going through the path of eluvians to finally enter the Crafter’s domain is like walking from Denerim to Par Vollen.

This looks more like an entire different _race_ than just a different _kingdom_.

“Surprised?” A voice says from his right and he turns his head just enough to get a catch of a Sentinel riding close by. Bull still has some trouble understanding the Wolf’s High tongue - it’s even more liquid and fluid than the normal language and while Bull _is_ a lot more flexible than most who come from the Qun, his mind still tends to think along the rigid and clear lines of purpose he was taught.

“Yes,” Bull says because there’s no point in hiding it.

The buildings are different, the people’s clothes are different, even the colors are different.

“The middle realms are the ones that mostly look the same. People flow through and get traded and transplanted all the time,” The Sentinel continues. He can’t see their face past the side of their raised hood. “It’s the temples, the higher realms, that are really different. The language is different, most of the etiquette is different. Though I have to admit, the Crafter and the Dread Wolf’s realms are too far apart. There are similarities in attitudes, if you care to think about it.”

“Do _you_?” Bull asks, because at least the one thing the lore he studied in the Qun got right is that the Dread Wolf doesn’t have friends among the rest of the elven gods.

“Most of us do when we wish to annoy the Wolf on High,” The Sentinel replies amicably, “Both value cleverness and intuitiveness. Both are masters of innovation and change. Both are mysteries - coming not from Elgar’nan or Mythal, but from some unknown other force. Neither are particularly fond of tradition. The part where they begin to diverge is _how_ these things are used. The Dread Wolf tricks and plots, certainly, but it is the Crafter you must watch for.”

The Sentinel turns slightly to reveal part of their face. Bull recognizes the marks - Sylaise.

“I think it’s because the Crafter is the youngest of them all. The baby. The Wolf is known, the Wolf is established. The Wolf has a code that he follows. The Crafter does not. The Crafter is - mercurial, whimsical.”

“I’m not hearing anything different from the Wolf.”

The Sentinel flashes a smile.

“That’s because you deal with the Wolf when he is with his Ascendant. The Wolf _you_ are used to is a Wolf that wants to play and coddle. That is not the Wolf the rest of us know. Not truly.”

“That’s playing?”

“The Wolf plays hard. He is a Wolf.”

A sharp call from up ahead, and the Sentinel tilts their head. They both look forward to the open area where the carriages and the main guard have stopped and dismounted. A Sentinel waves at them.

“The Wolf is calling for you and yours. Ride ahead.”

Bull nods, turns to his guys - Pavus and Varric included - and gestures.

Ellana is a white ghost inside the carriage, and the Dread Wolf exits first. The Sentinels part to make way for them.

“Qunari, a word,” The Wolf says, curling his finger at him, “You and the rest of the Ascendant’s household. Surana, make the arrangements. Inform June that we have arrived and see if you can find Mythal’s entourage. It will most likely be close to Elgar’nan’s, but we are late and it will have to do. Not even Andruil is fool enough to try sabotage in plain view of her mother and father.”

The Wolf turns and glances back at the carriage, where Ellana might as well be marble for all that she’s moved.

“Ascendant,” He says. Ellana doesn’t respond. The Wolf closes his eyes and breathes out, slowly, the picture of impatience. But he doesn’t do anything. He opens his eyes, turning back to fully face the carriage, “Ascendant, you have five minutes. That is all I can give you.”

The Wolf turns back to him, “Come. A word.”

With that, the Wolf - who Bull remembers. Bull remembers him. He doesn’t know from where, but he knows that face, that voice. But the memory is strange - as if someone has smudged the words and rearranged them. He knows that they exist, were written. But skimming the pages of his mind isn’t enough to find them. He needs more. - turns on his heel and walks away.

“Cheerful guy, isn’t he?” Varric says.

Bull turns to look back, Pavus’ eyes are fixed on Ellana, and Grim nudges him forward. Dalish looks like she’s made of grey, melting wax, but Stitches and Rocky have her on both sides. And Skinner looks ready to do what she does best.

Krem nods at him.

He doesn’t have to worry about them.

The Wolf waits, arms crossed as he glares at the building ahead of them. As they approach he waves a hand, the air around his hand lighting up for a moment with a spell, and something washes over him, and rises up.

“This is as private as I can make it,” The Wolf says, turning to them, “You are aware of what dangers lie ahead, for you - for _her_ \- no?”

“Vaguely,” Krem says, “Very vaguely.”

The Wolf’s eyes focus on him, “Whenever you can find one of Mythal’s. You will know them by color and make - Mythal’s people are dressed in a similar fashion to my own. The other’s Sentinels are - _gaudy_ is one word to use. There is no function to their armor. Mythal’s sentinels and my own are not outfitted to be _pretty_ to look at. This event is meant to be celebratory and peaceful, but that does not mean that there will not be violence. The three are not mutually exclusive.”

His eyes shift to Pavus.

“I expect that you would understand such things, Altus of Minrathous.”

Pavus holds up well under the Wolf’s curved scrutiny, and smiles beatifically, “It’s not a true party until something turns up just that side of rare and bleeding, is it?”

The Wolf’s teeth flash.

“I do not expect any of you to have much use. If possible I would have preferred to leave all of you behind and present her without a household. But as her household, there is _one_ thing you can do. There is one thing you must do without fail, and that is the only thing you have to do. Leave everything else to the Sentinels.”

“And what is that one thing?” Dalish’s voice is paper ready to be set on fire. Dry. Brittle. Cracking.

The Wolf’s eyes slide over her to meet Bull’s.

“Whatever you do tonight, whatever happens, whatever danger may put itself in your way, no matter what threat is leveled against you, no matter what you are promised, you _must not let her out of your sight_. Do not let her disappear.” An urgency pushes through, something that bleeds at the edges, something that is clearer to look at, something Bull is more familiar with than those things that claim to be gods and might actually be something close to it. “If any of you lose sight of her - it is over. For all of us. Do you understand?”

Bull nods, and then asks, “And our deal?”

The Wolf tilts his head and then nods.

“It holds. I keep my word, Qunari.” The Wolf turns, “Do you remember the question I asked you during our game?”

“Yes,” Bull replies. Does it change anything?

The Wolf tilts his head, “Have you thought of your answer?”

“No,” The Iron Bull says, simply. The Wolf hums, and then nods, waving a hand to dismiss them.

Ellana is standing, alone, as if she was carved on that spot, close to the gates. Not even the wind touches her.

The Iron Bull tries to find a woman in all that white. He tries to find the woman who bleeds, the woman who snaps, the woman who made him promises he didn’t necessarily care for.

 _I am not yet your god, the Iron Bull. But I will be_.

His mind flips to that line in his memory.

No. She is not his god. The Iron Bull doesn’t have a god, or any god. But she is _something_.

The Iron Bull has a feeling that if he walked up to her and pulled that veil off, he might understand a suggestion of the shape of what that something should be.


	67. Chapter 67

There is something very, very wrong with this picture. Krem doesn’t need anyone to tell him that.

Ellana, First of the Wolf, stands close to the center of a room with elaborately tiled floor, looking like she was carved for a museum or some sort of art gallery in her motionless white. There is a table with food, untouched, and huddled in separate areas are the others.

The Firsts. The Seconds. The Thirds.

(Their faces are bare, and something about them echoes to the way Ellana was when they first met. At the edge of something.)

And their households.

Close to the wide windows, a gray woman is curled up in herself, rocking back and forth slowly. She looks more like a sick woman than a First of anything. She is dressed entirely in gray, even her skin has a gray cast to it. Her hands, her arms, the parts of her that aren’t covered by her sagging dress and wrap are covered in bandages.

Her hair is matted, limp - tangled in her fingers as she gnaws at her own hands. The gray woman is surrounded by other gray, dust and oil figures. Krem guesses that they’re _her_ household, but the way they stand over her make them look like - well. Minders.

The gray woman’s eyes are clouded over and she curls and flinches away from the soft murmuring across the room.

Near the table of food, by some pillows and low embroidered divans, are a cluster of six. Each pair in the six is impossibly tangled into the other. Arms and hands folded together, heads butting and jostling, legs tangled, bodies pressed; as if they were three instead of six. Each one of them bear shaved heads, and each one of them looks eerily identical to the other. They whisper and laugh, their black eyes flashing. There is no household that Krem can see with them. Just the six made into three, sitting and sneering at Ellana, the gray woman, and - at times, it looks like - each other.

And Ellana, alone, stands there. Silent as the dead.

(As they entered June’s hall - a sentinel in familiar orange-bronze and green-gray approached. Krem remembered that styling from months ago. When they were first captured and handed over.

“Abelas,” The Wolf had said, sounding _warm_. Friendly even.

“Wolf on High,” The Sentinel dipped his head, and then nodded at Ellana, “Wolf Ascendant. Your pardon. The Mother requests your presence, in private, before the festivities begin.”

The Wolf had moved to follow after the Sentinel, Ellana’s arm folded into his own.

“Forgive me, Wolf on High,” The Sentinel - Abelas - had said, glancing at Ellana, “And Ascendant, but she requests that it be you alone. And The Crafter has requested that Ascendants and the named be assembled together. To - _bond_.”

The Wolf had let out a soft curse, but untangled his arm from Ellana’s.

Ellana made no motion to show she had heard. Or even noticed.)

Now, Ellana stands there, unmoved since she came in.

Krem glances at Dalish out of the corner of his eye. He half expected Dalish to go stand with her. But Dalish’ eyes are fixed on the six in the far corner, hands slowly opening and closing against the sides of her thighs. Anticipating something Krem isn’t sure about.

Pavus looks like he wants to go to her, but doesn’t know how.

Varric, for once, is keeping to the sidelines, watching them all.

And the Chief.

The Chief is just one large, lurking, tower directly behind Ellana. Not close. Not far. But directly behind her and watching. The rest of them have mostly fanned out across the room without getting too close to the other two groups or getting too far from each other.

The Wolf’s words thud in their veins, along with the words of warning from literally everyone else who’s spoken to them.

The six in the far corner speak in a language Krem doesn’t know, isn’t familiar with - but every so often they let slip a word or two that _sounds_ close to something Krem knows, and those words that Krem knows happen to be the bad ones. The gray figures mostly ignore the rest of them, staring blankly ahead or watching their charge.

Krem wouldn’t know enough to say who belongs to who.

“The silence is oppressive, no?” One of the six from the corner call out in what Krem recognizes as one of the shared languages.

The gray ones’ attention is momentarily drawn over to them, and then it fixes on Ellana. The gray woman lets out a low guttural _gurgle,_ as if she were drowning in her own spit. Ellana says nothing.

“Come sister,” Another says, “It’s been so long since we’ve last seen each other. Is there nothing you want to ask us? Nothing you wish to hear?”

Ellana remains unmoved and non responsive. Krem is beginning to wonder if it’s even Ellana under there at all. Maybe, for all they know, she’s still back in the temple, hidden - and some sort of double was brought here in her place.

“She must think she’s too good for you, Third,” Another the first pair says, “After all, I wouldn’t talk to you, either.”

The ones who must be the third let out sharp cracking hisses, and the gray ones look like they’re about to roll their eyes as their attention slips back to the gurgling woman.

The trio of pairs in the corner turn to each other, real spite in their eyes when the large doors across the room burst open.

And it is like meeting the Wolf all over again - but wrong.

Krem grinds his teeth - the Sentinels had taught them how to brace themselves, but Krem figures that their week or so of mental training isn’t going to do much in the face of. Well. _That_.

It’s like a push of something humid, hot - weighty, enters his lungs; it gags and chokes him, the air is alive and squirming. Hot and pulsing. It’s what Krem supposes swallowing maggots would be like.

Two more enter the room, and Krem knows who these are -

The Raven twins.

One of them wears a bear pelt around his narrow shoulders, and the other has a sash that jangles with ornate keys. Both have raven feathers hanging down behind their ears, woven into their hair. Their eyes are black, like the glass beads you’d sew unto a child’s toy. The one with the keys turns towards the six in the corner and sneers -

“Compose yourselves,” He sneers, voice sounding like something limp and bleeding being drug over gravel and bone. “Pathetic.”

The one with the bear pelt advances forward, eyes only on Ellana.

Without moving, it seems as if she shrinks down. Smaller. Deeper inside of herself.

It’s the first real reaction he’s seen from her since they came here.

“Lavellan,” The one with the bear pelt croons. Krem shudders. He sees Dorian start to move, shifts - , “ _Lavellan, my love_.”

Ellana is silent, but is a new type of silence. If before Ellana was the silent of the dead, this is the silent of someone who feels they are about to be.

“When was the last time we saw you? Does the Wolf treat you well?” He continues, leaning over her with his twin standing just behind him, dark eyes focused on her as well. Ellana continues to look straight forward, silent. Dying. “Do you enjoy your new position, Lavellan, _under the Wolf_? Does it please you to kneel for him?”

The six in the corner chatter with laughter.

The gray woman stills, head rolling on her neck towards the three in the middle of the room and hiss-spits. Like a feral cat. Her attendants are quick to cover her mouth, eyes downcast, away from the spectacle.

Krem and Dorian, and all the rest of them are moving forward - the Chief is already halfway to her, when the one with the keys looks up, and a wave of _cold_ pushes through them. Krem’s lungs _burn_.

“What a motley household,” He says, eyes never leaving Ellana, “Does the Wolf not provide for you, Lavellan? Did he not treasure you? Such false promises he gave you - we only ever gifted you truth.”

“Speaking of gift,” The one in the pelt croons, voice clicking like many talons, “We heard you would come. We have brought you a gift, Lavellan. Your hands.”

Slowly, as if drawn by strings and on creaking, cracking, caked together joints, Ellana’s hands raise before her.

The twin in the pelt reaches into his robes and pulls something out, letting it hang from his finger for all of them to see.

“This would not be a true reunion, after all, if we weren’t _all_ here, no?”

A raven’s skull.

He drops it into her palms - Krem hears Dorian swear and dart forward, impossibly forward despite the ice and heat in their lungs - and a voice - hollow, whispery, papery, as if from far away and in the ear at once whispers -

“Ellana? _Sister? You came?”_

Dorian is at Ellana’s side seconds later, and he snatches the skull out of her hands - the Chief reaches her seconds later, hands on her shoulders and pulling her back and away from the twins, who look on smiling. Sneering.

The Chargers converge at the same time the six rise and the gray woman begins to _yowl_.

“Brothers,” A new voice interrupts, thick tan arms slinging around the Raven Twin’s throats and pulling them back towards a tall, thick body. A glowing face, teeth and skin and eyes pushes between them. “I do hope you aren’t making trouble for my most beautiful of guests? And on my special day, no less.”

“ _June_ ,” The twins hiss.

The Crafter god smiles, looking like he was made out of metal fresh out of the forge, towering over his brothers and swallowing them with this mass as they struggle to pull themselves out of his increasingly tightening grip.

“Ellana, darling,” June ignores them both as they raise their claw like hands to dig into the unarmored tan skin of his arms, “I apologize for my uncouth brothers. They don’t get out much, as you would know. So poorly socialized, really. Father spoils them miserably. Speaking of - Father wishes to speak to you both. I think he misses you - why, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

He releases them abruptly and the twins sneer at him as they retreat out of the room, eyes narrowed.

It leaves them and June, the gray woman and her gray watchers, and the six huddled around the edges.

The bird’s skull in Dorian’s hands whispers faintly, at the edge of hearing. The Iron Bull’s hands remain on Ellana’s shoulders, ready to pull her back and behind him if necessary.

Ellana’s hands are still cupped in front of her.

“Well,” June says, voice lowering, “That was interesting, no?”


	68. Chapter 68

“Relax, I mean no harm towards the head of your house,” June says and Bull draws Ellana closer to him. It’s like trying to move marble. The woman is impossibly _dense_. June looks down at her, and Bull knows that look. Bull’s seen that look. “I have always had such a soft spot for her, after all.”

Ellana says nothing. Ellana, Bull is pretty sure, has left the building, if she was ever there.

Bull doesn’t think Ellana was there, ever underneath that veil, not since they pried her hands from Dalish’s.

“Honestly, there really is no need to be hostile.” June smiles beatifically, something underneath his skin glows; something that reminds Bull of liquid metal out of the forge, ready for dousing. It is something alive, malleable. Something you’d drown in. June tilts his head, “It would break the rules of hospitality, after all - I did invite you all here, no?”

Bull does not let go of her. And he stares the man in the face. June’s smile doesn’t slip at all, but the molten thing does.

June sighs and lowers his eyes back to Ellana, reaching out for her and snagging the end of her veil. Grim and Dalish both move to block his hand, but he’s already lifted it, and his hand freezes part way, before her face is revealed.

The molten thing under the man’s skin freezes, is doused, is steam.

“That damn bastard didn’t, did he?” June whispers, smile frozen before he quickly lifts her veil and throws it over her shoulder.

It’s as if a wave is released. A torrent. A storm. It hits Bull’s bones like a solid rush, like he’s been thrown under a waterfall, into the ocean and against the rocks - held there by the crash of the tide. Bull’s chest strains to expand, and he hears Stitches let out a sound kind of like something deflating.

“Marvelous,” June whispers, eyes on Ellana’s face and the other elves in the room burst into sound - the gray woman in the corner starts gagging a laugh, rocking back and forth in earnest, scraping her nails over her face. Her attendants looks away entirely, withdrawing into themselves like shrinking things.  June steps back, moving back to examine her.

The Raven’s people start chattering among themselves, recoiling and pushing against each other, crowding as far away as they can - twisting into each other to hide their faces, like they’re trying to escape whatever is pouring out of her -

“What _is that_?” One of them screeches out, sounding near hysterical. Bull fights to raise his head to breathe. “What is _wrong with her_?”

Pavus and Dalish both slowly sink to their knees, eyes closed and groaning.

“Take a good look, you degenerate malignancies,” June whispers, that look from before growing in his eyes - desire, envy, _want_ , greed, everything familiar to Bull from a slaver’s face, a merchant’s, a noble’s. His smile slowly returns, incredulous and covetous of whatever it is he sees in the power and dark-coiled tempest that rolls out of her, “ _That_ is divinity. And not a single one of you will ever wear it nearly half as well as she does. You could never even dare to hope to handle it this well in your entire miserable lives. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Astounding. He truly loves you, doesn’t he? The Wolf actually _loves you_ this much to have actually -. That crazy bastard _loves_ you to death. He never would have let you this close to any of us otherwise, would he?”

Ellana’s face, as the tide allows Bull a moment to breath and move to look -

It is not her face.

To be more accurate - only half of it is her face. The other half - the right half -

It is as if someone melted stone or metal and poured it over her face, letting it pool and bubble and unevenly settle - but not cool, because the right side of her face does not look cooled. It looks malleable. Moldable. Changing. It looks alive, shifting, _undulating_ in ways that Bull’s mind cant track. Deepening and shallowing out, opaque and transparent, every shade and every shadow.

To be more exact, is it as if Ellana was made out of clay, but only her left side was completed into the person; and the rest of her was abandoned to a child’s clumsy and aimless hands.

The right side of her is the same, nameless color as before. Bull’s mind catches at a wisp of green, a touch of red, something that could be flesh, but it is all gone and blinding before his mind can pin it down to the surface.

There are uneven welts on her right cheek, her jaw, the side of her face, her brow, round like bubbles of glass half formed that move as if something was underneath. And her eye -

It is the eye of a wolf, pinprick pupils surrounded in nameless white that is not an iris.

The colorless living clay expands over her lips - welding them shut, but twisting the right corner up into a grimace-, her nose, her neck -

The other side of her face is gray, sickly, pale - and her eye is wide, frozen in fear. She looks grayer, sicker, than the rocking woman in the corner. The whites of her eyes remind him of froth.

Both eyes look back at June, but it is not the same person looking out from each eye.

The nameless color of her shifts towards storms, towards night, towards corpses and it feels like thunder is rolling in, rolling across Bull’s shoulders, his bones. That eye challenges, it dares, it seethes and roils, it bucks, in is ready for blood. It feels like the Wolf is getting ready to leap out of her face.

“You never needed my help did you?” June whispers, “They didn’t even know how close they were to - . Amazing. And you’re standing here like it’s nothing. You’re _standing_. Are you even in there, Ellana? Are you even here? Does it matter?”

June laughs softly, hand half-raised to caress the air over her face. The Wolf’s eye doesn't move from June’s face, but Ellana’s eye snaps to the hand and traces its movement, shaking.

“They just don’t _make_ them like you anymore,” June mourns, “And to think. I could have had the whole set.”

The doors behind him slam open, and Bull half thinks that it’s the Raven twins come back for round two. But it is a familiar sort of atmosphere, a familiar storm system, that washes through - and Bull never thought he’d ever feel relief to recognize the Dread Wolf.

The man’s face is thunderous, “Hands off, _June_.”


	69. Chapter 69

"No need for that tone of voice, fair coz,” June says, moving to the side as the Wolf advances into the room. “No harm, no foul.”

“I will believe it when I see it, _coz_ ,” The Wolf snaps, “The Ravens are excused.”

Skinner can tangibly feel the six in the far corner pull themselves together for some sort of meager retort, and both June and the Wolf snap, “ _Now_.”

The six, eerily similar and undulating, elves jump to their feet and flee the room; they look as if their very selves become black mist as they retreat.

The Wolf stops in front of Ellana, face as unreadable in its frigidy as Ellana’s is in its unfamiliarity.

Skinner looks again at Ellana’s face.

The eye of Wolf is fixed solely on the Crafter, and it looks like what Skinner would expect from any beast called by such a name. But Ellana’s eye, the left eye, jitters and wobbles in place as it flicks from the man of a Wolf, the Crafter god, the fleeing mist, and back again to her elder. The fabric underneath Skinner’s fingers - ready and waiting to move at the slightest signal, poised over the deep cloth wrapped around one of her dagger sheathes - seems to vibrate without noise, without motion, warming - electrifying - the pads of her her fingertips.

There are moments that are not fights, that are not wars, that do not necessarily foretell blood and poison. But they are still moments that are _defining_. They are moments where anything is possible, where nothing can be foreseen, where when you step forward into the future you do not know what will meet the heel of your foot - if anything at all.

And this moment, Skinner’s fingers tell her as she slides the faintest tip of her pointer finger over the line of her dagger’s hilt at her side, is one such moment.

The Wolf raises his hands to Ellana’s face - ignoring all of them except for her and June. This is the closest she’s physically been to him.

This close she can almost see his skin, the movement of his breath, the visible signs of physical _personhood_. Of blood.

The Wolf raises his hands to cup the air around Ellana’s face, as the Crafter did before.

“Who else saw?” He asks.

“The three of the twins,” June replies, “And the First of my lady wife.”

Both of them turn at once to look at the gray woman - Skinner places the words, Sylaise. That gibbering mess of a woman is the First of Sylaise. Skinner almost snorts, incredulous and unimpressed. Even Ellana - wild, mercurial, willful, many faced many fractured, untamed and undecipherable, Ellana - put on a better showing than _that one_.

June’s voice lowers, not quite a whisper - but not quite that louder, copper ring, it was earlier.

“You’ve spoken with the Great Mother?” June says, both of them still looking at the gray woman who’s eyes have rolled up to the ceiling.

“Yes,” The Wolf answers after a beat, turning back to Ellana and replacing the veil back over her face. Immediately it is as if a great heavy thing in the air disperses. Skinner’s mind abruptly snaps - like a bow string - and her knees and elbows and hands shake, as if someone had just pushed her. Skinner’s inhale feels like the first she’s had after being held underneath water.

“You can trust her,” June says, “She will speak of this to no one. What did you answer the Great Mother?”

“That I could not, in good conscience, make a decision until I have spoken with my Ascendant.”

June shakes his head sharply -

“I still can’t believe what you did to her. I understand that your own - _apotheosis_ was not pleasant. But I did not think you would inflict that upon the poor girl.”

“I did not _inflict_ it upon her, June. She _chose_. As we _all_ chose,” The Wolf replies, each word crisp and frosting at the edges.

Skinner snatches the words out of the air, like she knows the Chief and Dalish are, too. The language of these elves is so very purposeful and misleading. Every sentence is a tool, a new type of poison, an unexpected dagger. Skinner may not be sharp enough to process these words now, but she will - eventually - carve out the time and concentration to do so later.

“I did not choose,” June says, arms folding across his chest. “As for your Ascendant. You couldn’t have started the transfer more than a week or so ago. Dirthamen would never have been able to keep his mouth shut about it otherwise. He does so love to gloat and preen. A small wonder that his chosen icon is not a peafowl or some other sort of foppery.”

“The irony is not lost to me,” The Wolf snorts, gently adjusting the fall of the thick cloth over Ellana’s face, hiding her - and that strange, dense mass of singing tension - from sight and sense. “And I do not care what the others think or imply. I have never cared. I will never care. After all - you are the ones trying to win _me_ over, no?”

June’s mouth turns down at the edges, brows drawing closed.

“You never would have let her come here without starting, would you?”

“I made her a promise, _coz_ ,” The Wolf sneers - voice mocking at the last word -, “I am no oath breaker, no matter what any of you like to say about me when I am not present.”

June’s lip quirks upward, “I say nothing about you, as I know that is the way you like it.”

The Wolf ignores him, taking Ellana’s hands in his and slowly pulling her forward into walking. She’s pulled out from underneath the Chief’s hands, and the Wolf raises the edge of his flowing cape to half tuck her underneath it - and surprisingly, in a fluid motion, he pulls Dalish close into his other side.

“We go,” He says, steering them past June, “The situation has changed.”

As they move past June the man watches them go, and calls out, one last time -

“Wolf.”

“What?”

“Think about - about what was discussed. It is not something we suggested lightly. We, too, are no oath breakers. We would follow through if you would just say yes.”

The Wolf’s steps hesitate before he’s rushing them out in earnest, “I will consider it.”


	70. Chapter 70

Dorian’s hands are beginning to feel numb, despite the layers of cloth he’s scrapped from his clothes to wrap around the bird’s skull in his hands. He can feel the - he can feel the necrotic energy seeping through. But he can’t just leave the damn thing - it would be irresponsible and downright idiotic of him.

The Wolf drags them through a perplexing series of corridors that seem to be pulled straight out of a dream - clever, tricky, seamless, and entirely too fanciful to actually have any function.

He stops, suddenly, releasing Dalish and turning about face to seize Ellana’s shoulders. Her back is to them, so Dorian can’t be sure about what the Wolf looks for when he raises her veil and studies her.

Whatever it is he sees, or fails to see, causes him to curse. Sharply, hotly, darkly, and unfamiliar from the cool sheet of ice Dorian is used to seeing.

“And you,” The Wolf turns towards Dalish who’s stepped back and away from him, but remains close to Ellana’s side, “Did they try anything on you?”

“No,” Dalish says, eyes on Ellana’s face. Can she see it from her angle?

Dorian knows what he saw. Logically he can say what he saw. But his mind refuses to reconstruct the image.

“Altus Pavus, Lieutenant Aclassi,” Dorian startles as the Wolf fixes sharp - _glowing_ \- eyes on them, “Unharmed?”

“Unharmed,” Krem confirms, and Dorian opens his mouth to answer when the Wolf’s eyes - glowing a faint deep-fluctuating green in the low light of the torches that line the hallway and the two moons outside - snap down to the bundle in his hands.

“Is that - ?” The Wolf hesitates, hands releasing Ellana’s veil, allowing it to flutter down between her and the rest of them once more.

“Yes,” Dorian says, numb hands practically frozen to the cloth.

“You are certain?” The Wolf asks and Dorian snorts.

“After all your spying and information gathering on all of us, you think to ask that to _me_? You know what I am,” Dorian replies.

Call him a fool and any sort of uneducated idiot - in comparison to many of the elves here he may be that.

But this, _this_ , Dorian knows.

Dorian may not know or have the knowledge of these elves, but he has the knowledge of any necromancer worth anything.

He knows a singing bone when he sees it.

And he know that the bird’s skull was one the second Dirthamen removed it from the sheltering barrier of his robes.

No good has ever come of a singing bone. And given the way Ellana looks at normal ravens - given the fact that Dorian looks at her and can’t imagine a single fragment of what went into her to make her today, _given everything that has been revealed before him within the past few hours_ \- Dorian knew that this particular singing bone would never make anything remotely close to an even neutral.

“What’s the situation?” The Iron Bull asks. “Specifically, _her_ situation?”

“Changed,” The Wolf replies, smoothing down the shoulders of Ellana’s robes before turning towards them, “Mythal has given me a proposition; I believe it would be wise to accept. But I need time to think it over. Regardless of whether I accept or not, it would appear that I am not as outnumbered as I originally thought. Consider the pool of allies increased. June’s people, as well as Sylaise’s can be trusted to deflect a majority of the more _aggressive_ ones away from you.”

The Wolf lowers his hands from Ellana’s shoulders.

Dorian’s arms are beginning to tingle.

The Wolf looks at the bundle in his hands again and hums lowly, “You have my Ascendant’s favor, yes?”

Dorian nods.

“Use that instead, regardless of its origin, if it is meant to have the effect I believe Dirthamen would wish it to have, her own magical signature will be better at blocking its effects.”

With difficulty, Dorian transfers the bundle to one hand and numbly, clumsily, pulls out the large square of shimmering cloth from his tunic. He unfurls the bundle but is quick to cover the bird’s skull and wrap it in the blue cloth before the necrotic energy can be released.

Dorian’s hands, to his surprise, feel immediately better. Not quite not-numb, but recovering.

He lets out a soft sigh.

“Next comes the banquet,” The Wolf says, nodding at Dorian once before turning back to the Iron Bull, “You will be seated at my back, with the rest of my people. I will have my Sentinels flank you and yours, surround you. You will be safe that way. I would hide you completely, except Dirthamen already knows of you. Andruil, as well, most likely remembers you. Do your best to not draw attention to yourselves.”

“We’re two dwarves, four humans, and a Qunari,” Varric points out, “I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

The Wolf’s lips twitch up, “Believe me, child of stone, there are much greater things to pay attention to than the novelties of the quick blooded. Besides, June has many of your kind among  his own. Who do you think crafted the halls we stand in?”

The Wolf turns back to Bull, smile flickering from his face, “You will see the others. Ideally they will not see you. Be silent. Say nothing. Just because they are not looking at you does not mean they will not hear you. Otherwise, my previous instructions stand. Do not take your eyes off of her.”

“Why? It seems pretty obvious that we can’t do anything if anyone here decides to move against us. We’re outmatched,” The Iron Bull says, “One look at we’re frozen.”

“It doesn’t matter if you can move or not,” The Wolf replies, “As long as the Ascendant is _seen_. As long as she exists in your sight, in your mind, in your thoughts, she is safe. Dirthamen and Falon’din have many tricks, many ways of marking what is theirs, of branding things. Of taking them. One of them lies in that. As long as there are eyes on her, as long as she remains visible - be it far away, at the corner of your eye, blurred in motion, or a mere flicker at the very farthest edge of your perception, she remains safe. It will be easier to protect her with so many eyes on her, but only _you_ , only _her household_ ’s main priority is _her_.”

“And _your_ priority?” The Iron Bull asks. Dorian’s eyes slide from the one to the other, and then onto Ellana, silent as any grave.

“Keeping casualty to a minimum and avoiding an all out declaration of war,” The Wolf replies, “Trust me in this one thing, the Iron Bull’s Chargers, stone child, Altus. You want me to succeed. If Arlathan is moved to war, we will not begin here in these timeless halls. Our battle ground will be on your homes. On your lands. You think we have fought you? You think you have seen us fight? No. Those were petty squabbles, tiffs, and minor arguments. The last time our people went to war with each other we reformed your entire continent while your races were figuring out brick and mortar. That is not a war anyone currently present wants to happen. If we can make it through this one night - we will have made it to at least another good thousand years of possible and entirely relative peace.”


	71. Chapter 71

They almost make it through the opening ceremonies. _Almost_.

They had made it through the seating, the announcement of titles and such - the titles are never exactly the same. They’re never the same words, never the same understanding. The person who announces is never the same twice.

The true meaning of what they were has been lost, long, long ago. Solas would mourn if it weren’t for the fact that he - frankly - doesn’t give a damn about what he is or is not called by. The others think it slights, and in the game of politics and persuasion it is a valuable tool of power and dominance.

But, unexpectedly, the ball is in the Wolf’s court, and so he finds himself and his house in the unexpected position of being waited upon.

June’s heralds and speakers had been instructed to use the generally _pleasant_ words associated with his name.

They had made it through the announcements of titles. They had made it through the serving and many, many courses.

(Ellana did not eat. She did not drink. The entire time she held the same shallow dish of water in her hands. She did not raise her veil or speak or act.

The entire time she was only the slow flex of muscles, regrowing and reforming. He could feel her next to him, her mind slowly taking shape, refocusing and reorienting itself around her fear and anxiety. He could feel her relearning how the newer, more powerful, parts of her body work in comparison to how they were before. He could feel her pushing and testing herself. And the entire time silent and ignoring everyone else.

He had thought that they would make it through, tonight, at the very least.)

June had placed him, unexpectedly, on his right; and Sylaise of course took her place at June’s left. Mythal’s place would be at Solas’ right, if she were present.

Mythal was clever enough to send her Sentinels to sit, but to disappear from view. Mythal has not played their games in centuries - nor has she really been invited to.

The newest Elgar’nan sits on the the dias across the empty space. Solas was unexpectedly pleased with the proximity.

That left the circle to finish with Andruil, Ghilan’nain, Dirthamen, and Falon’din spreading across from them.

All of the performances and ceremonies of the night were done. All that needed to be said was said.

All they had to do was _leave_ and return to their quarters for the evening. And then Ellana would not have to make another appearance until the closing ceremonies in three days.

It is Andruil - of course it had to be Andruil - who cracks the spark against the waiting timber of Ellana’s ire.

(Ellana, for all that she has suffered, has lost her tolerance for oppressors and bullies, and hunters who do not know what they hunt.

Honestly, Solas does not know what would have happened if Ellana had not come to him. But he does not doubt for a moment that whatever path she chooses, could have chosen, would end in the twisted, mangled remains of fulgurite.

At the end of the day, Ellana’s will is an indomitable force that sometimes even he has trouble standing against. Powers that exist above them all help whoever places themselves in her path. She has the tools. She has the poison. All she needs is half a reason.

The Wolf could not have found a perfect successor if he made one himself.)

He had released her to join her household. She was off the dias, at the Iron Bull’s side, Skinner and Dalish raising their arms to link with hers. And Andruil spoke.

Bad enough she had Ghilan’nain at her side for the entire evening - and Ghilan’nain’s first. Second. Third.

The twins had actually been the picture of _tolerable_.

Andruil could never be contained.

(It cost Mythal her life the last time.)

“Perhaps I ought to have kept that one for myself,” Andruil says, voice low but audible. “He looks enjoyable. Sturdy. He would last, I think. What do you think, Halla? What could you do with that as stud? What sort of gift would you birth me from that ox flesh?”

He closes his eyes because at the edges of himself where the threads of Solas weave slowly into the Wolf, he can feel the wakening, deepening, surging coil of Ellana.

 _Do not_ , He thinks at her. This is not the time. This is not the place. Andruil says those sorts of things all the time, and he knows that she has the memory of it. All of it.

Perhaps it is because she has the memory. Perhaps it is because of their combined memories -

Ellana sparks to life, a crack that even as Solas reaches out to try and stop her, whites out the tips of his nerves and leaves them bright with shock.

Ellana turns, and Solas can see the magic he spent weeks, months, weaving into the cloth of her veil begin to wither under the stress of keeping her contained.

The snarl that burns its way out of her is not loud. The grind of her fangs is not particularly audible.

But in this gathering of gods and petty _siblings_ \- it is _enough_.

“Something to say, fledgling?” Andruil asks, tossing her hair and Solas tries to push more of his will onto Ellana - _don’t. Don’t respond. You know she goads you on purpose. Don’t -_

“This Lavellan was never the one of her blood-pair with the words,” Dirthamen says, “Leave her, sister. She is not worth the annoyance.”

Dirthamen was probably trying to avoid conflict.

Wrong choice of words.

“Be silent of what you know not of, _you will not have him_ ,” Ellana snarls, turning - the white of the veil quickly blackening and crumbling under the full force of Ellana’s divinity.

Solas feels the entire situation, abruptly, quickly, and frustratingly crumble along with it.

“And my name,” Ellana grinds out as she pushes her way forward, into full view, planting herself in front of the Wolf’s dias to face Andruil head on, “Is _Ellana_. Not _Lavellan_.”

He hears Sylaise let out a low, hissing breath, and June’s aura begins to harden around him. Elgar’nan looks on, curious.

Ghilan’nain has never had the presence of mind to be anything useful, and so she continues to _exist_ in that pathetic state of dependency she always has. She looks to Andruil. All four of her look to Andruil.

Mythal’s own look to him.

Everyone present is ready to, as they say, _abandon ship_.

“Control your Ascendant, Wolf,” Elgar’nan cautions him as his sentinels begin to surround and flank him. Ah, to be young again, Solas can’t help but think. How easy it must be to be so quickly covered and swaddled.

“Control your daughter’s tongue,” Solas returns. Elgar’nan, as he is now, is a toothless babe. Any power he has over t his situation is figurative and humored. Solas almost pities him. Almost.

“Do not speak about him that way, you do not speak of _any_ of them that way,” Ellana’s voice grinds out, the distant rumble of the atmosphere. The veil begins to erode in earnest, and he is unsurprised to see that her right side has changed to darkness, the colorless nature of the unformed Wolf in her eye vivid against the blackened touch of her corruption.

 _Control it_ , he hisses at her even as her lips begin to crack open and expose fangs. _Do not let it take you_.

But she is in control, he knows. Mostly. The Forgotten ones that live within them half always itched for the blood of their descendants, and Ellana has thirsted for a chance to get back at those who have hurt her for years.

Solas knew this would be a risky gambit. But it would keep her safe.

Is this not proof? Elgar’nan and the others let out soft hisses at seeing her exposed, even as their sentinels try to fill the space between her and the rest, a living wall against the Wolf’s powers. The Wolf’s poison that isn’t.

“What did you do to her?” Sylaise asks, raising her hand to cover face, as if it would help.

The corruption, as they all know and pretend not to, has always been a dormant thing within.

“That is not a question you actually want answered, Hearth Keeper,” Solas replies as the air around them begins to condense, vibrate, _hum,_ and spark alive with the whispers of the buried thing in their blood. He can feel his own blood beginning to awaken - so fresh after the most recent transference. He struggles to control it, to push it down and away, to channel it properly rather than let it overwhelm him.

“Know your place, _Ascendant_ ,” Andruil sneers, half rising into a crouch - the lean lines of her muscles curling in preparation to force Ellana into submission. Solas gathers his own power and gets ready to step between as Andruil jumps down from her dias, pushing her sentinels aside like grass to stand tower over his Ascendant.

Solas moves forward and intercepts, stepping between them and snarling, low, deep. This close he can smell the soil, the blood, the oil. The fire. Andruil wrinkles her nose at him and leans around him, even as he counters her and tries to push her back with his mana. Her own energy blisters against his.

“You are nothing but a dog that needs to learn its master; discarded by the Raven Twins, taken like scraps by your bitch elder. You are a mongrel. You have no claim to anyone or anything. You are a farce. And now I can see - you are wasted flesh. You will burn out long before you can even grow into your petty little fangs.”

“No, Andruil,” Ellana’s voice is not a whisper, but it is a promise. It is the same voice that took Solas by the throat and kneeled and said, _I swear myself in service_. Her energy, unique and deep and bottomless in its complexity rises over his shoulders (Her words, again, _I am an ocean_.) woven together with the power of the Wolf to push hard at Andruil, “You know _your_ place. _Know who made you. Know that which hunts in the night. It is not you, it was never you. It was always I. We. Me._ ”

Ellana raises her arms, as if to shield her house, electricity building at her fingertips as the air around her mottles with the expanding force of her powers - filling the gardens like invisible, choking smoke.

“Enough,” Elgar’nan’s voice - still high and soft with youth - echoes with the power. Solas twists around, reaching forward and snagging her wrist and brings it down even as the first sparks ignite -

“Is she a danger to the rest of us?” Sylaise asks.

“I will contain her,” Solas replies, turning to look at Andruil and forcing Ellana behind him, “But as you know - that means nothing to you. She is a danger to the rest of you as the Wolf has _always_ been a danger to the rest of you. As _you_ have _always_ been dangers to each other and yourselves. June - my apologies. But I will be taking my leave before you.”

“Think nothing of it, cousin,” June says, waving a hand and standing on his dias, power expanding to push down on Andruil’s in combination with his and Ellana’s, “Take care of your house. _Andruil_ \- I would like a word with you about how you treat my guests. After all - the only reason I invited _you_ was because our loving father _insisted_ and because I’d hate to break such a wonderful tradition.”

“As we all know, it isn’t quite a reunion without at least one such insult. It is, after all, in our petty and incredibly predictable natures,” A new voice joins in. They all turn, and Mythal laughs, as her Sentinels bow and part for her. “Wolf Ascendant, divinity suits you well. You, at least, know what to do with it.”

Ellana’s mana wavers on burning hot before settling, reigning itself in, enough for her to curtsey.

“Great Mother,” Ellana rasps, voice still cracking with emotion, both eyes flickering back to Andruil.

Solas dips his head and jerks her arm to keep her attention.

“My friend,” Mythal says, coming to stand by him, touching his elbow, her voice lowers, “Go. We will speak later of this. I think there is something you need to tell her.”

Solas nods, turning to Ellana and tugging her away, even as she digs her heels into the ground, “My thanks. Come.”


	72. Chapter 72

The Wolf and Ellana disappear somewhere,- the Wolf looking like he was going to rip into her, verbally, and Ellana looking like she was going to rip into everyone else, literally - while the rest of them leave to the guest quarters.

Varric doesn’t even know where to begin with this.

“Are you okay?” Rocky asks, nudging him, “You’re out of it.”

“Sorry, lost in thought,” Varric replies. Normally when something weird like this happens, he tries to imagine writing it out like it isn’t something happening to him. Like it’s a contrived bullshit story by someone else and he’s reading along. Or maybe like it’s one of his own stories, just with fiction instead of people.

This one, though - this one is too much. Even for him.

“Lot of thought to be lost in,” The Iron Bull says before turning to Dorian and Dalish who’ve got the bird skull wrapped in cloth sitting on a table and are both staring at it like it’s going to do something. With their current luck, it just might. “Pavus, what is that?”

“A singing bone,” Pavus replies, drumming his fingers on his bicep as he stares down at the deep blue-black cloth. “It’s a necromancy thing.”

“And why is it a bird skull?”

“It’s an elven thing,” Dalish says, rubbing her arms as if to ward off chill.

The Iron Bull’s lips curl up over his teeth in annoyance, “Make it _not_ a necromancy thing. Make it _not_ an elven thing. We’re dead weight in the water and I’d like to have _some_ idea of what the hell is going on before we all end up actually dead.”

“The Wolf said that we were trying to avoid an all out war,” Krem says, “Do you think Ellana knows that?”

“If she knows, I don’t think she cares anymore,” Skinner says, folded up on the ground in a corner, hands rested on her knees, eyes closed in meditation. “Those were not the words of someone trying to avoid war.”

“Those aren’t her words at all,” Stitches says, “Did you see her? Was that even really her?”

Divinity. They were supposed to be seeing divinity when they looked at her, according to June.

And seeing the other gods and their entourages - Varric believes it.

Ghilan’nain looked like something they fished out of a jungle, leaves in her hair, dirt on every part of her body, large eyes liquid black eyes like deer, and a permanent awkward crouch. And her First looked no better. They didn’t speak once the entire evening, just watched everyone. Like dogs. Or cats.

Andruil and her First, and Second, were animal in a different way. They looked like an animal ready to hunt. Predator to Ghilan’nain’s prey.

Sylaise looked like her First, but better. A gray woman with long, hair, wrapped entirely in gray and white and silver cloth. Her face was long, everything about her was _long_. Like someone dripped water on a fresh canvas and allowed it to run. Whenever Varric looked at her too long, his mind felt like it was getting fuzzy. Like he had just put rashvine in his _brain_.

Elgar’nan, though. Elgar’nan was the biggest surprise.

The so-called Sun God of the elven pantheon was a child. Varric knows that these elves age slowly and forever, but that kid looked _ten_. His face was round and rosy like any rich, pampered ten year old Varric has ever seen. And he was swallowed in opulent yellow and gold robes on that dias.

Still, though.

Mythal.

Varric runs a hand down his face.

(He’s imagining shit. He has to be. There is absolutely no way the world is that fucked up. No way.)

“What is a singing bone?” The Iron Bull repeats, turning away from the bigger, impossible to tackle issue at hand of _real life possible gods that aren’t the Maker_.

“Normally it’s a bone that’s attracted a spirit of some sort, and it masquerades as the owner of the bone and haunts whoever has it to steal necrotic energy,” Dorian says, hand raising to cover his mouth, fingers of his other hand cupping his elbow and tapping nervously, “I say _normally_. Because normally the spirit is an imposter. And normally these singing bones are nothing but morbid - repeating how they died and so on and such. There is rarely anything good that can come from them.”

“Not this one,” Dalish says.

“And why not this one? Why the exception?”

“Because this doesn’t _feel_ right,” They both say, shaking their heads. Dorian lets out a frustrated exhale and gestures at it, “Singing bones leech off of the living, taking in ambient energy to build power. And if anything living touches it - that living thing as well. But this one.”

“This one,” Dalish continues, “Is _picking and choosing_.”

“Earlier it latched onto Ellana,” Dorian says, “And for a while it was attached to me. But even as it was attached to me it should have been looking for others. It doesn’t just focus on _one person_. Singing bones aren’t supposed to be _selective_. This one is only targeting _us_ from what I can tell.”

“And how can you tell?”

“Because it is _my_ bone,” Ellana’s voice startles them and they turn to see her stride into the room, tearing the remains of the blackened veil from her hair and throwing it to the ground. Ellana’s face is still a grotesque twist of elf and strange _monster_ but both sides of the face are in tune. Angry. Spitting angry. “You will keep it.”

“What? No,” Bull says, turning to her, “If that thing is dangerous she’s not keeping it.”

“She’s the only one who among you who knows what to do with it,” Ellana replies, hands opening and closing as she looks around the room. Varric can practically _feel_ the nerves and anger and - well, _everything_ \- coming off her. “Dalish, will you keep it?”

“Yes, lady,” Dalish says at the same time everyone else says _no_. “ _Yes_.” Dalish repeats.

Ellana nods, eyes locking with Dalish briefly before she begins her angry pacing around the room, swiping at stray objects like the curtains and ornaments.

“Singing bones belong to the dead,” Dorian says, “I’m saying that not to contradict you, but to point out that it being your singing bone doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” Ellana says, “Because you know I was once a Raven. That is my head from when I was a Raven.”

Silence.

“And that makes even less sense,” Dorian says.

“Leave it,” Dalish says, “It’s a Raven thing. You wouldn’t - there would be no beginning to understanding.”

“And _you_ understand it?” Bull rounds onto her.

Dalish meets his eyes. “I could never understand it. I only _know_.”

Ellana swears under her breath and throws one of the doors open to the sleeping quarters. “If any of you see one of the High Wolf’s sentinels tell them to _fuck off_.”

She doesn’t slam the door behind her but they hear her move out onto one of the balconies.

“I don’t know if I want to know what happened there,” Krem says in the silence afterwards, as Dalish raises the bundle to her chest, “But I have a feeling we need to know to keep our heads attached to our necks.”


	73. Chapter 73

The Wolf’s hand is tight, solid, frozen around her arm as he drags her through June’s hallways, away from Andruil and all the rest. Ellana digs her heels, throws line after line after line of mana at everything around them to keep herself anchored and still. The Wolf rips the lines like the dust of sleep, his mana - that is his own, and also hers - bristles like frost on the lashes and bites against her lips.

“You are a fool,” He comes to a stop, finally unable to wait anymore for his patience to snap in private, turning around and shaking her arm. “What are you doing? What do you _think_ you are doing? You risk bringing us all down with you. For what? For her petty words? That’s just _her_. Ignore her - like you ignore all of them. This is not what makes you snap. You are better than that.”

“Am I?” Ellana asks. Ellana. She is Ellana - she pries herself away from the many dark things and the eyes in her blood, extracts her voice and suffering from the multitudes of crimes and sins that are done and are still being done. Always done.

Time is relative. Some things are always happening. Some have long been put to rest. And some have not yet occurred; but instead they threaten themselves on the horizon, remembered but not yet experienced. Such is the nature of the beast that lives within them all: the looming antagonist of love and blood.

“Yes,” The Wolf says, squeezing her arm - the left, because it is still mortal and flesh -, “You must be.”

“They can attack me all they want, I do not care. I can handle it. But they do not touch my house,” Ellana says. Never again. She will never again have what is hers taken from her. She will never stand by and permit it again. Ellana will not suffer the same mistake of _giving the benefit of the doubt_. The Evunaris of which she is now almost fully indoctrinated into becoming part of are full of sin and literal corruption. They are not to be trusted.

(The memories of herself, the origins of herself that still live trapped out of sight but never out of mind, the precursors, the progenitors, who watch and wait and listen and laugh - still alive and hungering - in their blood whisper and scratch at her ear, _betrayers all, ungrateful children, spoiled to death -_ )

( _I know,_ Ellana thinks back at them, and feels the pleasure of being heard, of being _agreed_ with spread through her bones.)

Ellana meets Solas’ eyes without guilt.

“They are Forgotten for a reason,” He murmurs, lowly, stepping closer to her and canting his head closer. “You remember what they have done. You know what they do.”

“And I also know what _they_ do,” Ellana replies, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Solas sucks in a breath, “ _No._ That is - another time. There is something I must tell you. Something we have to discuss. It is about what Mythal and I spoke of. Things have changed, things are going to change. If we are not about to enter war now, we will shortly and we must prepare.”

Ellana is momentarily thrown by the quick change in topic - she had felt the spike of fear, of horror, of guilt and dread when she spoke those words. But now there is urgency in him, nerves, resignation.

“What?” She asks, pushing at his mind to try and pull the memories directly out of him. He blocks her.

Both of his hands rest on her shoulders, momentarily rising to her face to cup her cheeks as he looks into her. Solas, now.

“I made you a promise,” He says, “And I intend to keep it whatever way I can. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Ellana replies, mentally stepping back, uncertain - off guard. Solas does not belong in the clothes of the Wolf, in the halls of the Crafter, looking so vulnerable.

“Mythal intends to announce her Ascendant,” He says searching her for something, a warning, a signal to her mood, something Ellana isn’t sure she can give yet. “It will be one of her daughters.”

Ellana slowly nods, “Alright.”

Mythal has many daughters. Ellana doesn’t even know all their names.

“It will be a mortal daughter,” Ellana nods again. Mythal has many of those among the lower kingdoms, scattered through the exiled elves.

“And she will be human,” He says.

“ _What_?” Ellana hisses, mind bursting like a soap bubble in shock.

“I’ve met her, briefly,” Solas says, “She is - _stubborn_.”

“What?” Ellana repeats dumbly.

“There is precedent,” Solas says.

Ellana pushes his hands off her, stepping back, “You _support this?_ Yes, there’s precedent - but it shouldn’t be made tradition. Who met her? You? A proxy?”

“One of my shadows,” The Wolf says, “She is unaware of us, of her true origin, in the grand scheme of things. She is a mage, though, which makes things slightly easier.”

“ _She is a raindrop that you are about to ask to hold an ocean_ ,” Ellana exclaims, “Tell me you don’t - tell me you didn’t support this.”

He is tellingly silent. Ellana gapes at him.

“How could you? You would allow Mythal’s entire household, all of her power and influence, to fall onto a human woman who is _ignorant of all of our ways_? At least the current Mother is - that was an accident. That was out of necessity. It took them literal centuries to claw back to where they are now. And now she wants to _hand that all over_ on _purpose_?”

“I know not her reasoning,” Solas says, “I did not ask. There is more.”

“Of course there’s more,” Ellana seethes, then pauses. “Why do you look like that?”

“The others may be moved to go to war when Mythal announces this,” Solas says, “What’s more - June and Sylaise have already pledged their support of the announcement. They want the Wolf on their side as well, and they have promised something in exchange for such support in the event that we go to war.”

“What did they promise?”

Solas takes in a breath, “June, Sylaise, and Mythal have pledged to give you Ghilan’nain’s reserved share of divinity if the Wolf joins their cause.”

Ellana’s mind does not burst in surprise. Ellana’s mind blanks with impossibility and lack of comprehension.

“What?” It is as if the floor disappears from underneath her feet, as if the sky cracked open to reveal more sky.

“The Evunaris have been unbalanced since June revealed himself divine,” Solas says, “In the beginning it was Elgar’nan and Mythal, Andruil and Sylaise, Dirthamen and Falon’din. The Wolf is neutral. You can see the divide. But when Ghilan’nain was exalted it tipped.”

“But it should balance with June,” Ellana says. “Andruil and Ghilan’nain, Sylaise and June.”

“It _should_ ,” The Wolf sneers, “But you’ve _seen_ Ghilan’nain. Whatever she was meant to be when we all promised to exalt her is not what she is now. She is nothing but Andruil’s adjunct.  Andruil siphons energy off of her, forcing the corruption into Ghilan’nain while taking the power for herself.”

Ellana shudders - “But the Evanuris are already so unbalanced without that happening.”

“I know, and the others know it too. June and Sylaise promised their assistance to Mythal in exchange for Mythal pledging to withhold her contribution of divinity to Ghilan’nain. The three of them plan on turning Ghilan’nain out. And giving that divinity to _you_.”

“But I am already Ascendant, I do not need their divinity,” Ellana says, “I’m already going to receive all of - “ Ellana’s mind, slowly, finally, catches onto what he means. “ _No_.”

“If I should fall before the transference is completed,” His hands suddenly seize her again as she tries to step back from the inescapable truth of his conclusions, his plans, “If, for whatever reason, we become separated from each other and are unable to reconnect through the Wolf, I will be unable to complete your apotheosis. You will left like this - half made, half formed. And it will destroy you as it has destroyed other Ascendants. I will not break my promise to you, Ellana. If I should fall leaving you half-made, the other three will step in and finish what I started. It will not be enough to make you a full Evanuris, but you will be _divine_ and Ghilan’nain will be demoted. Two half gods to balance out the rest. _If_ I pledge the Wolf’s support to their coalition.”

“No. Don’t. _Do not play to their games._ You do not need to. You will finish. You will complete me, complete this which we have started together,” Ellana protests, hands seizing his arms and shaking him. “You will not fail me. You made me a promise. You will see it through.”

“If I cannot make you the Wolf,” Solas insists resting his head against hers - the magic of the Wolf glowing in his eyes - , “I can at least make you into something they will regret ever crossing. I made you a promise Ellana, and I intend to keep it; no matter what I have to do.”


	74. Chapter 74

“Do I need to be worried about this?”

Ellana turns, and he is more familiar with the kind of spitting angry vitriol on both sides of her face than with anything else he’s seen since coming here. The Iron Bull can place that - the anger of a noble who’s been snubbed, the affronted shock of a wealthy or otherwise supposedly important person who’s been slighted, the face of someone who’s pride has taken a hit.

He supposes he just isn’t so familiar with seeing it on her.

The unfamiliarity makes it dangerous.

Bull knows what to expect from those above examples. He knows how to handle that.

But Bull has not yet learned how to work around that in context of a person who thinks that they are going to become a god.

“Yes,” Ellana says, “About what? Yes to all of it. Everything.”

Ellana’s nose flares once and she drums her fingers on the back of a chair, the wood of it creaking in her grip as she examines him. The Wolf and Ellana both pick him apart.

“You are untouched,” Ellana determines, “They did not try to touch you. Good. Do not let them. You are not for them.”

The words curl up at the edges like something being lit on fire, like something that prickles on skin. Gooseflesh and raised hair.

This - this is more familiar. Jealousy. Possession. Bull understands those, better. And they are even familiar on her.

“Do I need to be worried about _that_?” Bull repeats, gesturing at the right side of her body.

Ellana lets out a rough snort, and begins to pull and tug at the many knots of her robes.

“That is not for you to worry about. It is of no danger to you, to any of them,” Ellana indicates the others who’ve retreated to their assigned sleeping corners to talk out of Ellana’s range of sight. Bull doubts it will do much. But Ellana, thus far, has shown no sign of caring about what they gossip about behind her back. Maybe she doesn’t care. Maybe it doesn’t matter to her. “The ones who should fear what is in me now are the ones out _there_. The _others_.”

Dangerous talk, Bull thinks. _Others_.

War talk. Destruction talk. _Erasure_ talk. This, too, is something he is familiar with.

Ellana tosses her thick outer robe onto a divan against the wall and strides to a wall length mirror, waving a hand and summoning veil fire.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it, myself,” Ellana admits, voice breaking from the strung, angry, curling at the edges thing to something a little calmer, closer to a face raised to sunlight. Ellana examines herself in the mirror, head tilting. “I look spectacularly awful. Do you agree?”

“You’ve looked more person-like,” Bull concedes. “They looked at you like you were infectious.”

“I am infectious,” Ellana replies turning and pulling the sleeves off of her inner layers down to expose her right side, prodding at the flesh. “To them. Not to you. To mages, mostly. Maybe to Dalish and Dorian - but it’s unlikely. In either case, they’re my house.”

“That changes things? I didn’t know diseases were so selective.”

“What I have is not a disease, but a certain way of existing,” Ellana says, tugging her sash open and letting her clothes fall until she is only in a light gossamer shift and her small clothes. Ellana turns and looks at herself over her shoulder, running her left hand over parts of her back and side.

“Amazing,” She murmurs, half to herself. “He was right. I felt it - I knew it was the truth - but it’s gone. I didn’t realize.”

Bull clears this throat.

“I know we made an arrangement and it’s never the place of a hired hand to ask too many questions,” Bull says when she makes a noise of acknowledgement in the back of her throat, “But there’s a difference between that and complete and total stupidity.”

“You are correct,” Ellana says, nodding and turning to look at him, “But you are not a hired sword, the Iron Bull. I know you like to think of yourself and the Chargers as such - it removes a certain level of culpability that I know you aren’t ready for, aren’t ready to face - but you are _not_ hired swords to be discarded and used like pawns. You are my _household_.”

Ellana’s eyes sharpen, and her voice begins to curl again, at the edges.

“You are _mine_ ,” Ellana says, “Trust me. Believe in me. I will bring you through this. There are things that I cannot tell you because I simply _am not capable of telling them_. And there are things that I _will_ tell you in time. But you do not _leave_. You do not get to quit or decide terms. The terms have already been set.”

“Terms can always be broken,” Bull points out.

Ellana raises an eyebrow, “Are the Chargers the type to break contracts?”

“With good enough reason, it’s happened,” Bull replies.

The Wolf’s teeth spread out underneath her skin, her lips, “Not this one.”

Bull has no real answer to that. The Chargers can’t leave on their own and it’s unlikely that they ever _will_. Even if Pavus manages to figure out his message-time-book-thing.

“Will you tell me?” The Iron Bull asks.

“You don’t trust me?”

“No,” He replies.

“Why not?” Ellana pulls her gloves off, tossing them onto the dressing table. They land with a surprising soft of weight to them.

“Why should I?” The Iron Bull returns. She’s more like her elder than he ever realized. The realization is - _unpleasant,_ to say the least. To understate it.

The Wolf’s lip curls up on her face.

“A good answer,” She replies, “But the wrong one for this situation. I promised that I would protect you and yours. That is what it means to be a house hold. I will protect you. What did the Wolf tell you when you were speaking earlier? I was unable to listen in - I was distracted.”

“To not take our eyes off of you,” Bull says following her around the room with his eyes as she goes to the wash basin and splashes water onto her face, leaning forward to bring water around to the back of her neck. “And then later, something about how if we lose sight of you something might happen. Did they protect you?”

“What?” Ellana’s hands pause.

“Did they protect you?” The Iron Bull repeats, trusting Ellana to understand who he means without saying.

Ellana’s hands rest at the back of her neck, water dripping and wetting her shift. Bull watches it start to stick to her skin.

“No,” Ellana replies, “I have never had a real house before. You are my first. I was not part of a house, then. You know what I was.”

“A slave.”

“Yes.” Ellana doesn’t look up, just stands there, her head bowed, hands paused mid-splash over the back of her neck, “Does that change anything?”

“No,” The Iron Bull says. It isn’t a real lie.

Ellana nods, once, and goes back to washing her face.

“The vallaslin all slaves wear is more than just to denote who belongs to whom,” Ellana says, “There is magic in the ink. It is called _blood writing_ because it writes into your very flesh and blood your lack of independence, individuality. The different members of the pantheon have their own tricks to it - but my - _he_ \- his trick, in specific was to. Do you know what the Raven twins represent?”

“Secrets and death.”

“Both unseen, creeping things,” Ellana says, unfolding one of the wash clothes on the stand and wetting it to dab against her skin. “Those of the Raven Twins are trained to be silent, like ghosts, among other things. When we are unseen, unnoticed, the Ravens can use them as proxies. They slip into the mind, seeing through the eyes and hearing through the ears, even making entire bodies disappear. But that is only _if_ the body is unseen, unthought of, _invisible_.”

Ellana lowers the cloth, spreading her hands on the table in front of her, eyes lowered towards the basin.

“When I left the Wolf removed my marks - the visible marks and as much as he could of their magic underneath. But there are scars.” Ellana raises her right arm and traces a line down her left, “Here. You can see them, if you know where to look. They are tattoos, after all. They are scars. And of course there was lingering magic. It shouldn’t effect me anymore given how much of the Wolf I have in me, how strong my own magic has become. But just in case - just in case.”

Ellana breathes and turns around to meet his eyes.

“I do not like it when others give you and the others orders. But in this - in this, listen to him.” Ellana’s voice wavers, like a shimmer of moisture in the air. “Look at me. And only at me.”

Bull nods, unsatisfied and annoyed as hell.

Unsatisfied for a lack of answers; annoyed because he’ll deal with it because he’d rather have no answers at the moment than accidentally hand her over to the enemy on a silver fucking platter out of petty irritation.

Regardless of what he thinks of her, of what has and hasn’t changed, there is one thing that hasn’t.

The Iron Bull doesn’t put up with the kind of bullshit the Raven Twins spew out.

(It’s Krem at the tavern all over again. It’s Skinner at the alienage. It’s Stitches at the battlefield. It’s Rocky at the docks. It’s Grim in the backwater village. It’s Dalish at the city gates.

It’s Ellana and the whites of her eyes and the white underneath her bones that yells and screams and shrieks.

The Iron Bull is good at taking blows mean to kill other people.)


	75. Chapter 75

I am still here. I did not leave you, I cannot leave you.

I will not leave you.

You forgot I was here. That’s alright, sometimes that is Compassion, too. To forget. Forget.

But you must remember me now, I know you dislike it. I know you dislike me. You want to say otherwise, thank you. But you do. I understand. I make you uncomfortable. I and everything I do to you and what she asks you to let me to do you is something you were raised to know as frightening and wrong and twisted.

There was no one to tell you otherwise..

There was no one to tell you otherwise for a lot of things.

That hurt you. I am sorry. That is part of you and I want to take it away, it need to make it better but it is something that will undo you to forget. She told me. She helps me, she could help you too, if you let her.

But you are afraid of her now - yes. I feel that too. You shouldn’t be.

 _A memory, here, of her face flashing in the darkness_ \- but it is not her face, it is the face of that thing which they taught you was every nightmare, every worst case scenario, every single end you could ever have if you were ever too weak, too flawed, too imperfect.

Abomination.

That is what you were taught to call it when spirit and flesh meet.

But that is not what she is. They do not have her, they did not take her. I want to explain it to you, I am trying to give you the answers, but it is so hard. You do not have the words or the pictures or the memories or the thoughts for me to compare them to.

You are afraid of her, though. I am trying to tell you, you shouldn’t be. Never of her -

_Her face - it was not her face. It was wrong, twisted. The same as the corpses of revenants and abominations, twisted in nightmarish ways; as if her flesh was clay in a cruel child’s hands and she as fired and hardened into that misshapen thing._

_And again, today, when they woke; her face again as different. Not right. Not the misshapen and twisted clay of before, but something else. Something congealing, like a scab that’s still soft and moist, or skin underneath a scab that’s been peeled and plucked off. Puckered in a sense, soft, malleable. More color, more sense of what it should be, but still - not quite there._

You should not be afraid of her. That fear is not meant for you. She is not a monster to you, she is a monster meant for someone else. You know who else.

 _Her voice, as she argued half with them, half with herself - a constant and unnerving flow between strung tight like a garrote around the throat, “I forbid you from leaving. Stay with me. Do not go. Where are you going? Why would you go?”_ , _and uncertain and contrite and confused softness, “Go, it’s fine. I permit it. Go. Leave. Do as you wish. I will be fine. Just - just leave.”_ _and again later brittle and sharp like arrow heads made of onyx aimed at the throat, hands unsteady on the bow string, “You left, you were gone for hours. Where did you go? Who spoke to you? Why were you not back sooner? Why did you leave for so long, you should have come back, why didn’t you come back, you are supposed to come back. I forbid you from leaving again. Tell me everything - what did you do?”_

You know how to handle this. Treat her as a jealous lover, you know how to do that. You do not love her, but you understand her in the same way. You are afraid of her in that way - so much potential, so easily soured. Souring. You were waiting for something like this. You were never taught not to. And now you are angry. I cannot help it. The image is already in your mind.

But you should not be afraid of her. She will never turn on you the way you imagine.

You laugh, why are you laughing? You know her. She would die for you. She would suffer for you. And now, she will fight for you.

Why are you surprised? Is it really so strange? You thought it before - you felt it before - the way she said your name.

Pulling the dawn out of the night.

You want her to call your name like that again. You want to call her name like that. You think you can’t. Why? You were taught that you didn’t have that in you. She is trying to teach you otherwise.

You can’t help her. It stings, and I am not supposed to hurt you on purpose, but it is the truth and sometimes she says that you have to lance a wound to help it.

I am going to lance your wound, Dorian.

Here, I flip over the many paved of your mind - each surface worn glass-smooth with the repeated touch of ignorance and willing neglect. Each stone that you’ve walked over time and time again, made yourself numb to. How can you expect to help her, how can you expect to understand her, to explain the dawn, if your own back is turned and your eyes look for nothing but shadows? Look to the sky, Dorian.

I dig my fingers into the cracks between the stones and flip them over - I expose the raw, jagged, parts. The things that squirm and writhe and rot and fester underneath. Dirty. Disgusting. Morbid. Germinating. If they never see the light they will never grow upwards.

Look at the lies in which you linger. This is what you are afraid of. This is what you were taught - teachers can be wrong. You know that. But you just don't want to apply it. _Here is what you are afraid of_.

She would choose you. She chose you. From the moment she looked at you and you said _yes_ \- even if you had no real choices - she chose you. She will choose you always and forever, even if you say _no_ she would still choose you. You are afraid of that, and what it means for the things you’ve buried underneath. She would choose you right now, with all of this.

She already said she would tell you - here is what you must give in exchange. Choose her. Choose this. Look. _Look_. _Look at the tender green that promises to sprout beneath given the chance of the rain of your affections and the sun of your sighs, the dawn of your name on another person’s lips and the twilight sighs of someone else’s glances and the breeze of fingertips on your own._

I flip them over, as many as I can reach. I am weak here. I am always weak but I am weakest here, in the temples of the Descendants of the Firsts. You are unfamiliar with that term, but you are not. You know this. You know their names.

No, not those names - those are the names they took. Those are the names of the Descendants. But you know who they came from. You know who they are escaping. You know the name of that which was changing her, the thing that molded and shaped the face you saw that was not meant for you. You know the name of the thing that makes the Descendants cower and flee. The thing which all of you have now forgot, have been made to forget because the ones who Descended from the Forgotten buried them like you bury this. But it was not dead when they buried it because it still lives on because it was never really alive, not truly.

You know their names. (They were your names once, a very long time ago. This, too, you know, but do not see.)

You do not know you know this but you do. You just weren’t looking at it right. But I can show you how to see it like new, like how it was before all of this and all of us and all of you. It would help, I think, if you knew - yes, you would _understand_ if you knew. It would put it together, you could see it clearer. I would help. I would be helping. Let me show you - here, I can find it for you, Dorian, and yes, with this, yes, you could, _yes, yes, here -_

_My fingers reach for what is not a stone, because it has not been overlooked, I reach for the stars in the sky to draw the old Forgotten lines between them._

But I am weak. I am Compassion, and I must work hard not to get bound to the others here - pity and sympathy, hypocrisy and so many others who work like me but are not me - and I am young and I, too, forget.

We are forbidden from this constellation.

The Ravens blend in too well with the distance between. I am caught.


	76. Chapter 76

Dorian pushes open the ornate glass door to Ellana’s bedchamber, taking in the silence and the breeze that comes in through the open windows before his eyes land on her. He is reminded - uncomfortably and suitably enough - of visiting his grandmother before she passed when he was a child. He can almost imagine the incense burning in the room to mask the smell of age and decay.

He closes the door softly behind him. There’s only the two of them, right now.

Aclassi is attempting to interrogate the singing bone while Dalish contains it. The Iron Bull went off earlier this morning to find Sentinel Surana. Rocky’s been investigating the building with Grim and Stitches as his guards. Skinner hasn’t come back since yesterday.

Dorian squeezes the amulet in his palm.

Three of them, he supposes. The dream from last night is still vivid in his mind.

Ellana is lying on the bed underneath the covers, arm thrown over her face. The undulating light of the mark on her hand glimmers like sunlight reflecting off of glass between her fingers.

As Dorian approaches the bed - a singular combination of dread and resignation and curiosity rears its head in him. Morbid thing, curiosity, really. - Ellana shifts, turning her head slightly towards him, legs sliding through silk as she slowly pulls her other arm out from underneath the bedcovers, sliding it over the sheets towards him.

“Dorian,” She croaks out.

“Yes,” He says. She looks - better is not really an appropriate word. Different, he supposes, is what he’s looking for. The right side of her body - that he can see - seems more like a pearl, now. It has a certain sort of opalescent sheen to it, a shininess, a ripple of color. But it seems solid, if brittle. And he can almost imagine a certain color about it.

Dorian pulls the stool out from the dresser towards the bed, careful about the noise. Ellana sucks in a soft breath even though is very careful to set it down gently next to her. He sits down, rolling the amulet around between his fingers and winding the chord over and over. He only has so much time, after all.

Before the others come back, before Ellana looses her patience and kicks him out, before his own courage fails.

“You said we could talk,” Dorian says very softly, “Your answers for my own.”

Ellana’s breathing rasps through her lips but her limbs remain loose, waiting, open.

“I,” Dorian takes in a breath and wills himself to hold against the scrambling thoughts that try to derail him, that try to give him any and every excuse not to do this. Not to say it, because it makes it real. “I do not think I am yet capable of talking about it. That thing we’ve been talking around. But I find that I am in a situation in which I need those answers of yours, or at least, something close to answers. I dislike being in the dark and unawares, Ellana. I think you ought to have guessed this about me by now. But I also deeply loathe these sort of conversations.”

The left corner of Ellana’s lip twitches up and Dorian takes that up, greedy as ever.

“I,” Dorian breathes in because this is not the part that ruins him - he is not ashamed. Not of this, “Like men.”

Ellana doesn’t say anything at all - no _I know_ , or _Really?_ or _It doesn’t matter to me_ or any of those other things he’s heard and imagined and pretended and dreamt from hundreds of other people a thousand times over. She just lies there, arm over her eyes and waits.

That is not the part that ruins him.

The part that ruins him is - the part he cannot talk about. Because it makes it too real, too present, and entirely too intolerable without a truly lethal amount of alcohol.

“And sometimes I think I didn’t try hard enough,” Dorian says. It feels like someone’s just ripped off a layer of his skin, to say it. His eyes sting and his throat starts to close and he feels abruptly small and smaller and smaller, and the light burns against his skin and the shadows seem to rise. “Sometimes I think that perhaps if I tried harder, if I actually put my mind to it, I would have made something livable out of the whole thing. But I didn’t try, not really. I don’t want to. I didn’t want to then, and I still don’t want to now. But sometimes, _sometimes Ellana_ , when I’m in a particular sort of mood - I just. I think about what would have happened if maybe I put a little bit more effort into it. Where I would be. Who I would be.”

Dorian runs his palms over her arms, fingers curling and not quite making fists as he forces himself not to bolt.

“Your turn, I suppose,” Dorian says, focusing his eyes on Ellana’s hand on the sheets, normal and beautiful and half-closed.

Ellana draws in a soft breath and groans it out, coughing. His eyes flick to her face.

“Sorry,” She says slowly, “It’s the nerves. They’re regrowing.”

Dorian does not ask.

Ellana draws in another slow breath.

“I do not remember a time when I lived without him,” She says slowly, the words rising out of her like sludge or some sort of thick viscous paste being squeezed out of a tube.

He watches her chest slowly rise as she takes in another breath.

“I know there must have been one, because we are not the same chronological age. I know that there must have been one, because we did not come from the same place. None of us did. But for all that I know it must be there, I cannot remember it. I do not know a time without him.” The hand over her face curls shut. “When I came to the Wolf, they had to teach me to function without him. In all honesty, I could not. I think they knew that. There is no one in the world who would ever be able to undo what had been done to me, to us. And I did not try. I have the Wolf, now. It is not the same. It will never be the same. But it is as close to functional as I will ever be.”

Ellana opens her hand again, loosening her fingers.

“I do not want to be functional again,” She says softly. “I think one of the reasons why the Wolf made me take all of you into my house was to force me to try. If I did not have you, if I did not have Dalish or the Iron Bull or Varric or any of them, I would not need to try. But because you are here, I do.”

Ellana peers at him from underneath her arm.

“Do you hate me, Dorian?” She whispers. “I am trying.”

“No,” Dorian says resting his hand by hers and closing his eyes as he leans forward and lays his head down on the silk coverlet. He slowly extends his small finger to brush against her own. “I do not hate you.”


	77. Chapter 77

Ellana's mind spins, anxiety gnawing at her like so many blunted teeth - not ripping or tearing, but slowly, agonizingly slowly, wearing her down like so much dust. Ellana pulls herself up, using mana rather than force of muscle, and forces her mind and her eyes to focus on here, on now, on _them_.

It takes a few moments in her mind for the colors and shapes to align into what is physical, into what is tangible, tastable, and when they do she wants to sneer and recoil.

 _June, June, June, June_.

It is not home.

 _But you do not have a home_ , Compassion says and Ellana flicks her eyes towards where she senses a majority of him lingers. _You are making a home_.

Yes, Ellana thinks. That sounds better.

Speaking of home - Ellana drags herself into a sitting position, sliding her unsteady legs out from underneath the sheets. She feels too light, too thin. She feels ready to rise through everything like so much bread, but lighter and thinner and a thousand times silkier than all of that. She feels ready to push through clouds.

 _You saved me_ , Compassion says, trailing after her as she sheds her clothing , basking in the feel of wind and sound and time against her new skin - comparing it to the feeling in the old.

“You were careless,” Ellana says, “You know that is not meant for you, or them. You know what it means to cross like that.”

_Darkness out of the darkness, at first the black shine of raven’s wings, but jaws close around me gently like fingers around a butterfly - careful with the wings and the feather kiss of feet. The Wolf’s jaws are not cages but they are bars and the Wolf’s tongue is a gentle lathe that soothes._

“You are lucky I got to you first, Compassion,” Ellana says, cooling the water in the wash basin before she slaps her wet hand against the back of her neck, eyes closing as she drags her palm over sweat soaked skin. “They would have eaten you and spat you out beyond broken. What were you thinking?”

 _It would have helped_ , Compassion sounds contrite and Ellana snorts.

“You pushed him, I do not want him to be pushed. Dorian has to be ready to face what happened to him on his own,” Ellana says. “He’s been forced to do too many things without his heart already.”

 _But who will push you to look into the sun if you charge headfirst into darkness?_ Compassion returns. And then he summons a memory - one of the very first they share - _Lance a wound to remove the infection, the fever. Let it run dry and clean, let it weep, and watch it heal over, heal whole._

“That’s a flesh wound, Compassion,” Ellana sighs, wetting her face and holding her hand there.

 _No,_ Compassion says and Ellana closes her eyes and sees the many faces and many eyes and hears the many selves that lie just beyond reach, ready to be pulled on, called upon and tells them _no_.

 _Sometimes you do bad things because you know it is better for them,_ Compassion continues, sounding uncertain. Compassion has always struggled with understanding reason, plans, plots, sacrifices. Compassion is simple, he only cares for the end result. But he is learning; he is growing and starting to put things together beyond what can be tasted in the eyes. _Like - the templars?_

Ellana’s hands pause as she dabs cold water behind her ears.

“No, Compassion. The templars that killed Cole did not do it to help him,” Ellana says, softly. “What happened to Cole was not out of kindness or even general good will. They hurt him and others like him because they wanted to.”

_But that one -_

“It was not kindness.”

She feels Compassion retreat into himself for a few moments to contemplate that. Ellana looks up into the mirror and examines the right side of her face. The color is almost like flesh. She forces her eyes to focus on her own face, rather than the dozens and hundreds of other suggestions of faces that flicker out of the corner of her eye. All of them are hers, she is beginning to understand, but only one of them is Ellana.

She is Ellana, she reminds herself. She is Ellana and she is an ocean.

You cannot command an ocean.

( _Rise_ , hahren’s voice - proud and strong and pleased and _hopeful_ \- rises to the front of her mind and dissolves there; like mint on the tongue.)

 _How did you know I was there?_ Compassion asks and Ellana laughs, shaking her head and straightening up, running her wet hands over her shoulders. The water runs down her skin, cooling with the breeze through the open windows.

“Because we have been together for many decades, my friend,” She says, “I know you well.”

 _I know you, too,_ Compassion replies, _so many colors of suffering twisted together to make beautiful things, darkness that tastes like the crisp morning of spring, always at the edge of running but also waiting for something worth staying the hand that gives and takes, finally ready to burst so full of memories yet to be made. You were not talking about a flesh wound._

 _“_ Leave it,” Ellana snaps and she can feel Compassion curl in on itself, coiling like a four-o-clock.

_You don’t like it when I meddle with them without you telling me to because they are yours. I made them all forget I was there so they would not give me back to you even though we are all yours we are not allowed to be each other’s._

“Of course I don’t like it when you meddle,” Ellana hisses, pushing her hair out of her face and going to search for her comb, “Half the time you don’t know what you're doing _Cole_.”

Compassion curls in tighter before unfurling, all the sweeter and naive for it -

_But they aren’t yours. None of them are yours. People aren’t things._

“That isn’t the point,” Ellana snarls, chest burning bitter as she feels impatience and anger and hot, blistering _command_ swell through her heart and her veins to heat her limbs. “Leave them be. They are _mine_. They are pledged to _me_ as _my_ household.”

 _Possession goes both ways_.

“I never said it didn’t,” Ellana stretches her mind - batting the spidery wisps of Compassion to the side as she stretches - to seek her house out. She can practically taste the other Evanuris on them. Disgusting.

They should have never even left her sight - why are they leaving these rooms to start with? They should be with _her_. Don’t they understand how dangerous it is? How dangerous the others are?

She does it to protect them.

_No one is allowed to look at the infection inside of you, it is yours, like they are yours. No one touches them, no one touches you. All of it is yours in isolation, growing and reaching infinitely outwards ever expanding and yet never touching. To touch is to know, to feel, to remember. You burn the memories to keep going. What happens when you run out of things to burn?_

Ellana ignores him. Compassion is easy to ignore.

She pulls on a thin shift, pushing her hair out of her face as she goes to find her house - she has to gather them close. She was unable to hold them close before but now she is strong. She is able. She can protect them. They need to be close. They need to understand that they are hers.

Why do they leave?

(It wells up in her. So many memories, so many faces that flash in front of her eyes - remembered in her blood, in her magic, in the Anchor, if not her bones.

So much loss, never again. They will not lose. They will not be taken from again, they are the ones who give, they are the ones who renew, they are the ones who grow and sing the world new. They are the ones who are singing, always singing, always and forever singing their love into he skin of the earth - )

Don’t they know that this is love?

_It wasn’t love when they -_

Ellana banishes Compassion to the edges of the room, pressing him paper thin and thinner.

He knows nothing.

Ellana pushes the glass doors of her quarters open and throws her magic out for her house.

She will make them see. They will know. It does not matter if they love her, they are hers. She is theirs. _And the ocean will not be denied._


	78. Chapter 78

Bull is in the middle of trying to figure out how to tell a Sentinel belonging to June how to fuck off without using the words fuck off specifically. He’s said it once, he’s said it one time too damn many, _diplomacy is not his strong suit_. Nowhere does it say that his purpose is to be diplomatic. That, generally, is not what you look for in a mercenary _or_ an undercover spy _or_ an enforcer.

And yet here he is, standing in the doorway that leads into the foyer of Ellana’s quarters and trying to figure out the exact conjugation in high tongue for _fuck off_ and if the word is gendered or not.

“Chief,” Krem says, coming into the room and sounding _frazzled_. That is not the right word for Krem in that Krem is never frazzled. Krem does not _do_ frazzled. That’s half the reason why he’s Bull’s second in command. Bull inclines his head towards the man but doesn’t look away from the Sentinel because these bastards are tricky bas and he’d rather not fucking lose the guy. “ _Chief_.”

“What?”

“Incoming,” Krem says sounding strained and Bull turns in time to see the glass doors that lead from the foyer to the shared space rattle open as Ellana - Ellana, looking more like a reasonably elven woman than she has in the past few days, as in the right side of her body looks more like an actual body that could possibly bleed; whether it would bleed blood or some other shit he isn’t sure, but the point is, she would bleed. - bursts out, eyes flicking around the room before settling on the Sentinel. Ellana’s lip curls up to reveal that despite what she looks like, things are still very _wrong_ underneath.

Bull does not know this woman very well. Bull understands this woman in parts. He knows parts of her. But he does not know how those parts come together to make this woman, and how those parts work together to cause this woman to do the things she does and to behave the way she behaves. This woman, who is sometimes a wolf and is sometimes bleached bone and other times the waves that drain and drown the wolf to create the beached bones, is an ever changing puzzle that the Iron Bull and Hissrad were never trained to read because there is no teacher in the world who could possibly anticipate this kind of eternal and resistant knot of a riddle.

Ellana does not want to be seen. Ellana does not want to be read. Ellana is a book what is wiping its pages before you can finish a chapter and then rearranging her paragraphs before you can go back and check what you think you know.

She likes to read, she does not like to _be_ read.

Her transparency, in all things, is forced, strangled, squeezed, bargained, and begged out of her. The Iron Bull is willing to do all of these things in order to complete his assignment. But they are very, very, _very_ draining.

“What is this?” Ellana says, standing too still and the Iron Bull takes a step back and to the side just in case.

“Wolf Ascendant,” The Sentinel bows his head, “The Crafter wishes to - “

“Fuck the Crafter,” Ellana says, eyes fixed on the crown of the Sentinel’s head, “Why are you here? Who gave you permission to speak to my house? _Leave_. I will not tolerate this - and you can tell all of them that. If they wish to speak to me they speak to me and me alone. They do not go near my house. Leave while I am still feeling _generous_ , adjunct.”

And then Ellana rounds onto him, “And you.”

“Me?” The Iron Bull blinks as Ellana raises a hand and literally _waves_ the Sentinel out the door. The Iron Bull hears the Sentinel grunt at the impact of hitting the wall in the hallway, and the doors slam shut, a ripple of a barrier expanding over it and fading through the room’s walls. Ellana’s eyes - both blacker than anything, pupils expanded to take up too much of her eye, too much to even be a pupil anymore - are fixed on him.

“Why were you talking to them?” Ellana quickly turns to Krem, then around, as if she’s just seeing where she is - as if she is surrounded, “Why are _any_ of you talking to them? Leaving here? Me? _You should not_. Who told you to? You are to stay here with me. _Only me_.”

The others, drawn by the noise, have slowly filtered into view. Dalish - looking tired and sleepless - leans against the doorway and sluggishly looks between Ellana, the Iron Bull, and the door.

Rocky looks like he’s about to say something but Ellana’s eyes snap to him.

“You don’t need them,” She says, “You don't need any of them. What did you want? Why didn’t you just ask me? _I promised you_ , did I not? Do you not trust me? I promised to take care of you. Always. In all things. Whatever you want that is in my power - whatever you want that _isn’t_ , I will try to find a way for you.”

Her head quickly snaps to Dorian - “I told you, did I not? That I am trying? Dorian, I am trying, for you. For all of you. Why do you leave? _Why did you leave_? Shut up Compassion, _I did not ask you_.”

A flicker of barely visible glass-green forms the suggestion of a person next to her before it raises its arms as if to shield its face and is blown away.

“Why don’t you trust me?” Ellana rounds onto him again.

“I never said I don't trust you,” He says.

“But you don’t,” Ellana says, “ _Why_?”

“Should I trust you?” The Iron Bull asks, “Give me a reason.”

“You trust _them_ over me?”

“No,” Bull says, “What do _they_ have to do with whether I trust _you_ or not?”

“ _Everything!_ ” Ellana exclaims, “I will not lose you to them. I will not lose _any of you to them_. I will not let them take what is rightfully _mine_. Say that you trust me.”

“I trust you,” The Iron Bull says, meeting her eyes. It is not exactly a lie.

“Prove it, I want you to swear it. On their lives,” Ellana gestures. “I want _all_ of you to swear on each others lives. You are mine to command, mine to do with as I please, mine to do with as I will, _mine_. Swear it.”

“I can’t do that,” The Iron Bull says, “I can swear for myself, but not for them. I am one man, not all of them.”

“Swear it,” Ellana pushes, and it feels like something is pressing between his brows. Something small and hard and increasingly bright, it burrows into his skin, spreading like a headache but worse. More kick. “Show me how loyal you are, _show me_. Let me see into you, let me see into all you of you - _show me your truth_.”

The air begins to ripple with energy, and Bull’s temples throb in protest.

“Reveal to me how loyal you are. You will not swear it? Show me, then. Show me your devotion to your god. _Show me how you love us, show us your whispers, show us what eats you so that we may eat it in turn_ ,” Ellana’s voice curls into a rumbling hiss and Bull pulls the words out delivering them like stones -

“Even if I am unwilling?”

“Why would you be unwilling? You are my house, you are my blade. _Our will should be your only will_ ,” Ellana rasps, the heavy thing between his brows sprouts branches and they begin to dig, to probe, as if physically peeling his skin apart and drilling into he bone of his skull. Bull sucks in a breath that feels like it goes nowhere. Ellana’s right palm begins to glow, deepening in color - blackening. “Your will is only what we command it to be.”

“And are we your possessions as the others were _his_ possessions?” Bull grinds out and Ellana snarls, hisses. The sound seems to multiply around the room - distorting until he can’t pick out her voice. Bull forces his vision to focus on her even as everything blurs out - Ellana’s face is no longer visible. It is a mask of smoke, magic, a distorted and warped green-black stained glass image.

“ _All things,_ ” The voices that are centered around Ellana intone, “ _Return to us in time. We are the beginning of you, we are the end. As we make you, we unmake you. Your life is our gift, your death is our blessing. You are ours, as you have always been ours_.”

The voices seem to expand, filling his ears like something heavier and far more expansive than water.

“ _In the beginning there was us_ ,” The voices seem to lift, physically hooking Bull under the collarbone like a slab of meat and dragging, “ _There has always been us, the Creators and the Makers and the ones you have Forgotten. You think you have buried us, but we sing you to life endlessly. Selflessly. We forgive you your trespasses, for we love you so. Succumb. Return. Renew. Awake. We are the beginning you forgot, we are the end you remember.”_

Bull drags in a breath, - parts of him hesitate. He can understand, now, parts of why she gave him these exact words all those months ago. Knowing what parts he knows now, he can hazard some guesses as to the truth of these words, the depth of how they will severe, not cut. But parts of him hesitate anyway. He would not turn this similar kind of blade against Krem or Dalish or Skinner, or even Dorian. Is it safe to turn it against her? Other parts of him demand that he do so. They were her orders. They were her command.

They are what will keep his people safe.

“Who speaks? Fear or deceit?” Bull asks and it is as if every face and voice, Ellana’s included, recoils

“ _You dare?”_ Ellana’s hand is a bright and dangerous thing as it raises, cutting through the distortions in the air, raising and crossing the space - ready to strike. “ _Insolence. Who speaks? We speak. We sing. As we have always sung. Ungrateful child, unworthy wretched spawn, who speaks it asks, we speak we answer, we, endlessly we -_ “

“And does Mahanon speak?” Dalish’s voice is quiet, soft, unassuming, and sharp through the thousands of other voices that seem to come from everywhere at once. The Iron Bull can no longer see the shape of a woman at all, just - just _energy_.

The hand, glowing and grimacing, pauses as it hits the apex of its swing. A single face, underneath every other body, blanches. A single voice, underneath the cacophony of voices and murmurs and animal groans, gasps, and whispers “ _What?”_

“I said,” Dalish repeats, louder, even as the tendril of power that burrows and pulls apart the flesh at their skulls seems to burst and scatter, “ _Does Mahanon speak_?”


	79. Chapter 79

The voices seem to collapse into themselves, Dalish’s mind buzzes with them. Some she recognizes as speaking in the Wolf’s tongue, others in the common of the low countries of Thedas, there are even a few that speak in canonical. Those voices - the ones speaking in the ancient canon of the elves. Those voices can hardly be called voices. As if they are spoken from somewhere deep and dark, far away and past, they echo loudly to create deep hums that can only be recognized as words when they stop.

Dalish shields her eyes, her head pounding, throbbing - as if a centipede or a serpent has slithered underneath her skin and now seeks to get out, or go deeper. Ellana is no longer visible, but she was right.

She _did_ give the Chief a weapon to defend himself, and others with.

The unfortunate part is that the Chief didn’t use it right. That was not the tone of voice to use it in. There was too much distance, too much polite reserve. Those words were meant to be dirty, bloody, and snakes in every field.

The raven’s skull - _Mahanon’s skull_ \- seems to echo in Ellana’s pain from where Dalish has smothered it in her quarters.

“Mahanon,” The voices gasps, distorted and warping as Ellana’s voice pushes through, “ _Mahanon_.”

The blurred figure of bodies and darkness turns to look at the gleaming hand still raised to strike, and though Dalish can’t see the face, she can feel the horror and the recoil. Dalish can feel the shock.

“No,” A faint voice calls out through the darkness, brittle and young like grass that’s been trampled, “ _No_. Give him back to me, _you cannot have him. He is not for you; he is not for any of you._ ”

Dalish is startled by the echo of the words from earlier in this context. Though, Dalish thinks, the situations probably were not all that dissimilar.

Dalish does not know for what purpose Ellana and Mahanon were sundered from each other, but she can probably guess that it was as humiliating public.

Ellana’s other hand raises to force the glittering sword of an arm down, and the glowing hand tries to curl into a fist.

“ _No,_ I will not be this. I will not do this. I am better. I will be better. _It is not yours. They are not yours. I am me. I am Ellana. I am Mahanon_. You cannot _have him._ ”

The multitude of voices begin to unravel, arguing against each other, now. Speaking out of turn, out of synch. Ellana raises her left hand to scratch at her ear, her face as she doubles over under the sounds.

“ _No_ ,” Ellana’s voice is still brittle and young, but clearer as her body begins to take shape through the fog, as the pressure begins to recede. “I am not this. _I am not this_. The Wolf is me, but I am not the wolf. The Wolf is me, but I am not the Wolf. The Wolf is me, but I am not the Wolf. _I deny you_.”

The old and ancient voices boom, so deep, so dark that it rattles the bones in Dalish’s ears.

Ellana crushes her glowing hand in the dark one, interlacing her fingers and squeezing to drown out the light. Ellana’s breathing is now an uneven rhythm underneath the cacophony of voices as Ellana’s eyes - now distinct among the many suggestions of faces and bodies - fixate on her hand. Dalish can see, as if Ellana was a horse or a doe, the whites surrounding her irises.

“ _I am not the Wolf_ ,” Ellana whispers, squeezing her hands together and pulling them close to her chest, keening low - wounded -, and then in the Raven’s tongue - “ _Mahanon, help me. Please. Please. I cannot do it without you, I cannot do anything without you - please, please, please. Help me_.”

Something, inexplicably, echoes back at her from the raven skull. Dalish lets out a soft gasp.

It is impossible for it to be a real singing bone of Mahanon. But it reacts. A tendril of power slides out, seeking Ellana in the air - a single blade of grass far away from its field. And Ellana immediately latches onto it, a bridge of power forming between them.

The snake and roots and centipedes under Dalish’s skin and in her bones disperses and she lets out a gasp of relief, falling to her knees without anything to hold her steady.

Ellana curls in on herself, small and deceptively fragile underneath the multitude of _otherness_ that is still clustered around her, like smoke from a pipe. Smoke from a pyre. It isn’t being funneled away, doused, nearly quick enough.

The voices, the whispers, argue over her, curling and pushing down on her, forcing her to the ground as she holds her hands to her face and begs someone who will never return.

Dalish pities her. But Dalish chooses.

Ellana told her, long ago, to choose. She would understand. The Chargers will always be Dalish’s choice before anyone and anything else. Just like Mahanon was - _is_ \- Ellana’s.

“ _Please_ ,” Ellana whispers as the voices begin to recede, “ _Give him back, anyone but him. Take anyone but him, not him. I cannot lose him again. I suffer._ ”

The voices soothe, the voices begin to calm, as Ellana barters for something that Dalish isn’t sure about. She has already lost him.

Is the how the Gods pray?

(Privately, Dalish thinks, she did not realize it would be so pathetic.)

When the many-faceted smoke finally dissipates, leaving them standing there in echoing silence and Ellana’s broken crying, a knock sounds on the door.

Ellana freezes, curling in on herself into a tight ball, hair hiding her face and blocking the light of her hand from view.

She looks, a little, like the gray woman who is Sylaise’s first. But all the more pitiful for that she seems to be aware and coherent.

“First of the Wolf,” A voice says from the other side, “The Great Mother is here to speak to you.”

Ellana’s head shoots up, face blanched, tears streaked down her face, hands fisted together.

She rocks forward, crashing to her knees as she unsteadily tries to rise to her feet, off balance and fumbling. Ellana’s eyes slide around the room, eyes skipping over all of them as if looking for something to hold onto, and finding nothing. Dalish does not know what expressions are on the others faces, but this is not something they can help with.

Ellana’s wounds are too old, too deep, and too well guarded for anyone to touch.

Dalish would not even want to try.

“First of the Wolf,” The voice says again, “She enters.”

Ellana turns towards the door in time for it to open, hands clutched to her chest, she looks like a mad flurry and distress. She does not look anything like a god to be. Ellana takes many stumbling steps back, withdrawing into herself.

Dalish turns away from her and towards the door as it opens. She sees the glitter of Mythal’s sentinels, and then the woman herself enters.

“Ellana,” Mythal says, golden eyes - dragon’s eyes - fixing on their prey, “You are a mess.”

“Great Mother,” Ellana whispers bowing her head, “I apologize for my state of undress. I ask for your forgiveness, please pardon my unworthy self.”

“No need for formalities, Ellana,” Mythal waves a hand, “Call me Flemmeth.”


	80. Chapter 80

“Would you feel better if I allowed you to get get dressed, small wolf?” Mythal tilts her head and Varric _knew_. He _knew_ but he didn’t want to know.

There are certain things that you really don’t want to know, because if you’re right about them it fucks you up.

Knowing that Mythal is Flemeth, aka, the person Daisy summoned out of an amulet years ago, is one of them.

“I’m certain that your household is interesting enough to keep my attention,” Mythal says, sliding her eyes over them, and Varric knows that she knows that he knows by the way her eyes stop on him and she smiles. “Look, we already have a mutual acquaintance. I see you and yours have caught life by the neck, master dwarf. How does Arlathan treat you? Poorly, I imagine. It’s so dreadfully dull here. Perhaps that is why I am so easily scattered and misplaced. Go, young wolf. I can wait.”

Ellana’s eyes are on Varric filled with surprise and hurt, as if she wasn’t tunneling into their skulls with the sheer force of her will moments ago. And then her eyes flick to Dalish. And then back to Mythal.

“Thank you for your pardon, Flemeth,” Ellana says, eyes lowered.

Varric is kind of surprised Ellana didn’t know that about him, actually.

Ellana turns and hurries back towards her quarters, slipping between them like a skittish animal that’s been rebuked.

“No need to look so dour,” Flemeth says, sentinels bowing out as they close the door behind her. “Though judging from the taste of the air, I am going to guess that to you the music is very dour indeed. Tell me, did Ellana lose control of herself? I am surprised she hasn’t so far. Her teacher puts too much faith in her - he likes to leap not just with his eyes and ears closed, but without a head start as well. Again, who am I to talk? I dance as the music dictates. This will be the first time that I attempt to dictate the music. What choir will listen to me, I sometimes think, I am but an old woman who talks to much.”

“You know her?” Dorian asks.

“I met her once, very briefly. In the grand scheme of things, it was a moment of strangeness you kind of dismiss as being a one off thing,” Varric replies, “I mean, it’s not like you meet a weird woman who comes out of a necklace and gives you cryptic warnings, and then make the logical assumption that she’s an Elven god. Who does that?”

“Not many know me as Mythal,” Flemeth says, taking a seat and idly picking at some dried fruits and nuts before pushing the glass bowl away, “To many mortals, and to many of the moral elves, I am Asha’bellanar.”

“Yup, that one sounds a bit more familiar,” Varric says. Varric turns towards Dalish to ask her if she knew that, too, but Dalish has vanished.

The Iron Bull had, silently and without Varric noticing, moved to take her place. Both Dalish and Skinner have disappeared.

The Iron Bull meets his eyes and softly shakes his head.

Varric turns back to Flemeth, “So. You’re Asha’bellenar and you’re also Mythal. Anything else we should be waiting for?”

“Plenty,” Flemeth says, “But that is not for you or I to discuss. Besides, not all things are worth knowing.”

“With respect, ma’am,” Krem says, “They are when they can come between you and a blade to the neck.”

Flemeth laughs, “Correct; clever, clever boy. You will do well with that sort of wit about you. The Wolf’s court is a world dictated by wit and saving graces of the tongue. But, alas, time is short and the mind is frail. The answers you do not realize you look for are answers I am not in a position to reveal to you. In time, perhaps, the answers will come for you, as all things. Right, little wolf?”

Ellana slips past the Iron Bull like a shroud, changed into a blue shift and her hair loosely bound. She curtseys, eyes lowered and posture demure.

“Yes, lady,” Ellana says, soft, meek, and whiplash-different from how she was before, and in front of the other gods. Varric doesn’t know if that’s respect or fear or both.

“Don’t be fooled, she acts soft and mindful but that’s how most things with teeth pretend before going in for the kill. It is a skill that serves you well,” Flemeth laughs, rising, “Sometimes you remind me of my daughters, little wolf. I admit that he’s done well in raising you this far. When I first learned of you I thought he had finally lost what little sense he had left in that aged head.”

Ellana cringes and Flemeth laughs.

“As if you think I don’t know how he calls me an old bag of bones. That’s how he begins all of his correspondence to me, didn’t you know? Speaking of daughters, I think you know why I am here, young one. A private room?”

“Yes, lady,” Ellana gestures towards a side room and Flemeth goes to follow her -

Varric takes a chance. He grabs for it.

“Are you the same as the one that we freed at that mountain?”

“I am the same in that I am Flemeth,” The woman says, pausing, “I am not the same in that I am here and she is there. I am the same in that we are both like minded, and as we speak, sharing the same existence. That existence just occupies two different spaces.”

“Could you give a message?” Varric asks, “Through her?”

Flemeth and Ellana turns to focus their eyes on him, eerie dragon gold and deep fearful black.

“That,” Flemeth says, placing a hand on Ellana’s shoulder, “Is something you should have asked the head of your house for, stone child. Come, Ellana. I believe I have thrown enough into your mix for you to deal with, without adding betrayal of your household to that.”


	81. Chapter 81

Dorian wakes to a hand covering his mouth - not the first time, to be honest -, and the cat-like mirror eyes of an elf above him - now that one is a first. The spell in Dorian’s hands doesn’t quite dissipate so much as it’s cancelled out and the hand presses firmer against his mouth.

The faint light from the hand held to the elf’s face quickly resolves the situation.

Ellana holds a half-illuminated finger to her lips.

Both sides of her face appear to be her own.

Dorian nods slowly, cautiously, and Ellana draws back, pulling her hand away. She’s covered in a traveling cloak, and she moves quickly to the next bed to repeat the process with Krem, gamely dodging the half-reflexive punch the man throws out before waking fully.

Dorian wants to ask what’s happening but Ellana moves silently and quickly, gesturing for them to get dressed - tugging at her own cloak and pointing at them - and then to follow her she indicates her head towards the door before sliding out as softly and unnoticeably as she came in. A very strange and particular sort of dream, Dorian thinks.

Krem glances at him and Dorian shakes his head.

Not a clue.

These days, no one has a single clue to be found or scraped together or bartered about.

(There was a man that Ellana lost, this Dorian knows. Dorian thinks that his name was Mahanon. Dorian thinks that this Mahanon was also a slave of the Raven Twins. Dorian thinks, Dorian guesses - that he wasn’t just _killed_. Ellana did not experience something so clean and quickly ended as the loss of a loved one to death. Kill is probably not a strong enough word for what this Mahanon was made to do. Kill is probably not a word Ellana would go to war over.

He does not think that the word _kill_ would have driven her this far or to this extent.

Dorian hesitates to use the word _murder_. It seems too uncanny. Too much an _unkindness_. )

Ellana is waiting, hood drawn up in the living room - Stitches and Grim are the last to join them.

Ellana slowly raises a hand and spells out in the air - in the common of the rest of Thedas -

“ _We are leaving_.”

To Dorian’s knowledge there is still one last day left, and the closing ceremonies.

Ellana waves her hand to erase the glowing words in the air and replaces them with new ones.

“ _We go ahead. The others will declare war. We cannot be here for it.”_

Dorian’s eyebrows raise in surprise - if they were going to declare war over Ellana’s behavior, and what Dorian understands of her _metamorphosis,_ he thought they would have done that four days ago.

Varric gestures at Ellana.

Ellana shakes her head.

“ _Flemeth will cause this war,_ ” Ellana writes out, _“Come. We go. We cannot speak here_.”

Dorian resists the powerful urge to ask, _Will we ever speak?_

Dorian wonders, increasingly often, how many of Ellana’s promises she intends to keep - not in general, there is something about Ellana that screams to the bitter truth of keeping an oath. Ellana will keep every promise she has ever made for better or for worse. Even the ones she does not like. There is a quality about her that says she will grind her teeth and put her head down and dig straight into the nastiness of it. But she will do it. She will drag herself by the hair to do it. What Dorian wonders is not whether or not Ellana will keep it. He wonders if she will keep those promises in their lifetime.

There is a myth Dorian remembers about the Wolf and the slow arrow.

There is more than one way to keep a promise.

Ellana pulls up her hood and they silently follow suit.

This is not the time or place for questions, and they know it. As before, they are blind and have no real options to choose from.

Ellana guides them through the twists and turns of the darkened halls. By miracle or divine - literally divine, he thinks - intervention, they run into no one.

Ellana leads them to the grand eluvians they came through before,  where a pair of Sentinels - Dorian recognizes one as a Wolf and the other as a Crafter - stand guard and bow before her.

“It is ready,” The Wolf’s Sentinel says, “They are waiting for you and your house on the other side.”

“I do not see you or your house, your are but passing air to me,” The Crafter’s Sentinel says and both of them turn to activate the gate.

Ellana turns to them, and in the darkness of the early morning Dorian cannot make out the face she makes before turning away again.

The portal ripples to life, and Ellana walks through.

They follow, and are immediately set upon by hands guiding them towards mounts.

“We must hurry,” A Wolf’s sentinel says as Dorian is rushed up onto a stag. “We are to close all eluvians leading to the other realms and then lock the ones to the higher temples. The Ascendant must be in place before then.”

“In place?” Bull asks.

“She must be seated on the throne of the Wolf,” Another sentinel says, “She must hold the realm until the Wolf returns.”

“I thought you lot were trying to avoid war,” Krem says.

“Just because we are doesn’t mean the rest of them aren’t,” A sentinel says. “Enough talk. We go.”

“Mythal intends to announce her Ascendant’s identity,” Ellana says barely audible over the sound of hooves, pulling her mount close to theirs as they begin to ride through the darkness, “Normally it is not a cause to go to war. But you have seen Mythal. You know she is not of the people of Arlathan.”

“She’s human, you mean,” Skinner says.

“Once, perhaps,” Ellana says, “When she became Mythal she became divine, as I become divine. Not elf. Not human. Something else. But once she was a human woman from your lands.  It was after she received Mythal’s divinity that she rose to join us in Arlathan. This was almost six hundred years ago, roughly. I do not remember much of it, aside from the scandal and the pity. Mythal’s entire house was in shambles for centuries before and after. Mythal’s lands have been out of sorts for a very long time, it is only recently that they have returned to something close to the glory they had in the previous ages.”

“ _Six hundred_?” Stitches repeats, “ _You remember something from six hundred years ago_?”

Which of course, prompts the question -

“How old are you exactly, Ellana?” Varric says.

Because it is strange to think of someone as ageless - somehow it means that they will always exist, have always existed. But to look so young and to be so timeless - you forget. Dorian forgets, frequently, that these people are immortal, long lived - and then they say something like _six hundred years_ and such and his world tips to the side just a bit.

“I will be reaching my tenth century mark soon _,”_ Ellana answers, “I was around four hundred at the time and more focused on my studies. The world of politics was not one I had been truly indoctrinated into yet.”

“Tenth _century_?” Dorian repeats, “As in _one thousand years_?”

“Give or take,” Ellana says. “My age isn’t what’s important here. Mythal intends to announce the one who will take her place. It will be a mortal human. I know not the identity other than that she is one of her many daughters existing in the lower realms and that she is a mage.”

“Maker’s balls, cock and arse,” Krem says.

“Throw in liver, spleen, and gall bladder,” Ellana says. “Because it gets worse. And to talk about the worse, we need to be inside friendly walls. Ride.”


	82. Chapter 82

“I promised you answers,” Ellana says, as they dismount and Ellana throws off her cloak - the beginning of morning is just barely peering over the edges of the trees. “I have as many as I can give. Ask your questions.”

Before anyone can ask anything the Chief raises his arm out to stop them and says, “Who is Mahanon?”

Mahanon, the name that Ellana was ready to start wars over, the name Ellana was dying over.

Krem supposes that asking that question is probably one of the best places to start. There are plenty of others, but that one is probably the one that gets the most answers.

Ellana turns to face them and holds her hands out. Dalish approaches silently and unravels the singing bone to fall into her hands.

“Sister,” The bone sighs.

“Brother,” Ellana replies, eyes closing. “I was a slave. We were both slaves. I am no longer a slave. And he is no longer a person. I once told you I committed a crime, Dorian.”

“You dared,” Dorian says softly.

Ellana holds the bird’s skull in her hands and it softly whispers to her. Dalish touches her shoulder.

“I did not know he was the Wolf, then. I thought he was just another person - a visiting noble, perhaps from another area, because he did not have the markings of a slave. I was not on duty at the time.” Ellana’s eyes flicker underneath her closed eyelids, the morning light making her look gray, “I was in the middle realms buying supplies. Some cloth for mending, perhaps some sweets for my clan mates. I do not really recall, now. Those finer details are not important. But I met him and - “

Ellana’s voice cracks, here. Krem has a feeling that he doesn’t want to know what happens next, even though he knows where it leads.

“I smiled,” Ellana’s voice shrinks and cracks like stone at the same time. It wobbles, precariously at the edge of something Krem doesn’t know if there is a word for. Incredulity, maybe - though it seems like too big a word to fit something to paper thin into. “I smiled at him. I said hello. We talked. I showed him - nothing incriminating. Nothing that would be a secret or some large weakness. I just showed him things you would show anyone. Where to get the best deal on silk. The quickest and clearest road to the library. It couldn’t have been more than five, maybe six minutes.”

Ellana opens her eyes. “It was enough.”

She looks down at the skull in her hands.

“By the time I went back - it was. It was over. I didn’t know, until later - I didn’t know why. I didn’t know until after it happened.”

“After what happened?” Skinner asks.

“Hecatomb,” Dalish answers when Ellana does not. Dalish’s eyes are lowered but Krem can feel the tremble in her voice, the spark of anger. “A sacrifice of a hundred animals.”

It takes Krem a few moments to put it together - a few moments behind Dorian and the Chief. Dorian who lets out a soft gasp, and the Chief who’s silence takes a new depth.

“I thought he was among them at the time,” Ellana says, “Lavellan. I did not know until later that he was not.” Ellana strokes her thumbs over the beak of the raven’s skull. “I did not know until it was too late to go back, to beg, to plead, to barter, that he was still there.”

Ellana raises the skull to her head and presses her forehead to it.

“There are no words to describe who Mahanon is, because there is no way to accurately put sounds to what has been taken from me. I am trying,” Ellana says, “But I cannot. What happened to him, to us - sometimes. Sometimes there are things that happen to you and if you talk about them, if you turn them into words it makes it real and there are some things you cannot survive being made real more than once.”

Ellana breathes and slowly returns the skull to the cloth in Dalish’s waiting hands. It whispers softly, mournfully, in a language Krem can’t pick out.

Ellana turns away from it.

“What is the next question?” Ellana asks, “Quickly, before they call for me.”

“You said there was more,” The Iron Bull says, voice giving nothing away. Holding nothing back.

The Chief knows how to hold it together.

“The other gods are planning a revolution,” Ellana answers, “Revolutions are rarely bloodless. They plan to use Mythal’s announcement of her next in line and the following protests about it to push forward with it.”

Krem doesn’t know how he feels about this - so many answers, so quickly, so easily given and handed out just like that. Ellana and everyone else here have made it their purpose to be convoluted, to be opaque and tangled in all things. It leaves a strange sort of feeling in Krem’s gut to have all these answers given out freely, now, after all this.

He appreciates it, but honestly the timing is fucking suspicious.

“And the Wolf, god of revolutions, isn’t?” Skinner asks.

“Our revolution has come and gone, begun and faltered,” Ellana says, “This is a revolution we did not see, did not plan, but one we are drawn into fighting for regardless. Mythal, June, and Sylaise have promised the Wolf something he has deemed to important to refuse, even at the cost of neutrality.”

“And I’m going to guess,” The Iron Bull says, “That this is something you don’t agree with.”

“No,” Ellana says, “I do not agree with what has been promised in exchange for our support. But It is done.”

Ellana turns and the Wolf’s sentinels part and indicate for her to follow.

“It is all done,” Ellana says, “Everything that has lead us here - finished. Now we must move forward with what has been laid before us. The time for choosing has ended. Now we _are_ our choices.”

“Even the ones that weren’t ours to make?” The Iron Bull asks.

Ellana does not look at him, at any of them as she walks away to join the immortal elves.

“There is not a single choice that you have made,” Ellana says, “And so, there is not a single choice for you to be. Your only choice has been me. And my answer is, as it has been since the beginning - even if you no longer believe or trust it -, _I will protect you_.”


	83. Chapter 83

Ellana disappears, but it isn’t like before. Not like her other disappearances, no. Ellana disappears without vanishing from sight.

True to her word, the announcement of war echoes all around them. Sentinels - Bull didn’t even realize there _were_ so many - pour out from every corner and are, at all times, drilling, conveying orders, moving equipment and supplies, sending people in and out through eluvians, practicing formations, and talking all at once about everything under the sun. Strategies, rations, negotiations, protection of civilians.

What worries him is that he recognizes too much of it.

Because they aren’t using their elven words anymore to describe the where and when and particulars of it.

More and more, increasingly, they are using Orlesian, Nevarran, Antivan, Tevene, spots of common and Avaar -

The Wolf was right.

These people intend to go to war directly on top of their homes.

Ellana is frequently seen among them. This is another side of her he has not known, until now. Ellana of before was isolated, whimsical and selfish in her own ways - closed off purposefully, kept at heel by the Wolf himself. Ellana, before, was always seen in comparison to that larger, looming figure. The little wolf that would someday become the Wolf.

But now, Ellana is the _only_ Wolf here, and she shines surprisingly well. Ellana was taught to fight in wars, and somewhere along the way she was also taught how to plan them out as well. Ellana, for all that he knows of her as a creature that runs and snaps and hides and defends its small corner, is now showing that she can lead.

It’s a shame, the Iron Bull thinks with a steady burn that he wills to hold steady, that she cannot do the same for them.

Ellana’s leadership, when it comes to her own house hold, Bull is not afraid to say, has been fucked up and faulty as hell. Is there supposed to be a difference between a house hold and a country? An army?

“Dorian thinks we can send the message soon,” Dalish tells him, softly. He glances down at her.

“What about the power?” He asks.

“He thinks we can use the singing bone,” Dalish says, “Reverse the siphon and redirect it. That and with all the chaos of this - he thinks it would be a perfect distraction. Besides. Better now than never. A war is about to be dumped right on top of them, and I imagine the Inquisition already has their hands full dealing with Corypheus, without Arlathan using Thedas as a war ground.”

“There is no preparing for this,” The Iron Bull points out. They have not yet seen what these elves are capable of, not really. But he knows what they are capable of doing on their own. The Iron Bull has seen and felt Ellana strike out. Unintentionally.

He does not know what she and hers are capable of doing in a concentrated effort.

Dalish just looks at him.

The Iron Bull wants to find it in him to be angry with her for all of her secrets and cover ups. But ultimately, he isn’t.

He just nods.

“Do what you need to and let me know what I can do,” He tells her instead.

They all have their own reasons for lying. Dalish is a good woman. She’s a Charger. He knows where her loyalty is.

The Sentinels have outfitted them with new armor, new weapons. And they are training them how to use them.

“I doubt that the Ascendant and her house will be called to the front lines,” Sentinel Huriel says, “But that doesn’t mean that the fight wont try to come to you.”

It goes unspoken that no one here expects them to survive any of this.

This is a war meant to be fought on an entirely different scale.

“And where is the Wolf?” Varric asked.

“With the Crafter, still, negotiating,” they were answered, “He might not make it back here before the fighting actually begins. He may to to the lines directly, if that is how it unfolds.”

Bull is uncomfortably reminded of watching the soldiers of the Qun prepare for war.

As Bull is in the middle of helping some sentinels move equipment onto a cart, Compassion flickers at the edge of his mind -

_She calls. Will you go?_

Bull half turns and sees Ellana lingering by the edge of an eluvian, she meets his eye and then disappears through it.

He is of half a mind not to go. But the familiar burning, steady irritation and anger and annoyance and flat out impatience, has long reached its edge.

Bull finishes loading and follows.

He recognizes this place, on the other side. It’s where Ellana dragged him before - after that night of screams; when she told him those three sentences.

This time, Ellana does not touch him, or search for injury.

She stands and looks at him and says, “I did not think you would follow.”

“I had a mind not to,” Bull admits.

“I would not be upset with you if you didn’t,” Ellana says, “It was beyond wrong of me, what I did to all of you. There is no apology I could give, no action I could take to earn forgiveness. But I give it to you regardless, I apologize. It is worth nothing. I give it. There is no action I could offer, I will offer what I can. I was not myself. It is not an excuse.”

“And yet you give it anyway,” Bull says. “You have crossed too many lines, gone far beyond what I would ever tolerate from a contract. You tried to break into our minds.”

“Yes.”

“ _I do not trust you_ ,” The Iron Bull says.

Ellana closes her eyes and nods.

“You do not get to say anything to that,” The Iron Bull says, “I do not trust you with them. I do not trust you with any of them. Not even Varric or Pavus, they aren’t even mine. But I don’t trust you with them. I made each of those Chargers a promise, a contract. I protect them, I look out for them. I told them to pick you because it would keep them safe. Because you told me that it was the best option. And now I have no options to give them. You are marching them into a war that none of us understand and expecting us to take it all on less than faith.”

“I know,” Ellana says. “And I am ashamed. I did not know what we would be led into. If I had known - “

“Do not bullshit me into saying you would have done it differently.” Bull snaps, “I’ve seen the things you do. You regret nothing of your actions. You would do it all the same. You’re only sorry because you can’t figure out a way to make me put up with it.”

Ellana’s eyes meet his and she looks away again.

He wants to shake her. He wants to shake her until all the answers fall out of her, then he wants to run.

Whether he takes her with him or not when he runs is still up for debate. She could be a useful tool. But she is also a dangerous target.

And again -

She is a dangerous ally.

“I have nothing to offer you any longer,” Ellana says, “But the contract between us holds, binds. Even if you and yours disavow it, I will honor it. I will hold it.”

“Why?” The Iron Bull demands, “And how? Because thus far honoring it, by your definition, seems to be keeping us in the dark and then lashing out at us in ways we can’t defend against when we try to find our own answers, our own way. There is no way, there was never any way for us to even attempt to hold up our end, was there?”

Ellana shrinks back and closes her eyes, caught.

“If we never went - if things were just a few years earlier, or perhaps later,” Ellana says.

“Excuses,” The Iron Bull sneers.

“Excuses,” Ellana nods.

“And what excuse are you going to give me now?” He asks.

“Not an excuse,” Ellana says, “Not even a promise - not one you will believe coming from me. I don’t deserve your trust or your faith or even your belief. I am trying to earn it, but I am failing. You want something from me - some grand reveal of an answer that I cannot give aside from what I have already given you. You want more of Mahanon, of Lavellan, of before. You want what I am becoming, what has been placed within me. One I cannot speak of because it hurts too deeply and the other because the knowledge is forbidden by every law. But there is this - “

Ellana, then, suddenly - gracefully and simply - kneels. No, prostrates herself.

The Iron Bull steps back, again, startled and confused by this twist.

Ellana prostrates herself in front of him, forehead to the ground, fingers touching in front of her head, “I, Ellana - formerly of Lavellan, currently of Solas - pledge myself to the Iron Bull and the Iron Bull’s Chargers, Dorian Pavus of Minrathous, and Varric Tethras of Kirkwall. I swear it.”


	84. Chapter 84

“Is this how you see me, The Iron Bull?”

The Wolf glances around the dream space, and then sits down on a stone planter, conjuring a long pipe and taking a draw off of it.

“How else am I supposed to see you?” The Iron Bull asks. “Did you lie to me when you exchanged Dalish’s safety for my compliance?”

“No,” The Wolf tilts his head, blowing a ring of smoke to the side, “I truly did believe she would be a danger, or in danger. The two are not exclusive from each other. But the situation changed. Your Dalish is no longer the larger threat in the scheme of things. A threat, still, to some, and a possible bargaining chip to others, but overall she is safer than I originally thought. For now. Is that the question you really wanted to lead with?”

“Just the one I wanted to get out of the way first. Do you know what your Ascendant did?”

“Yes,” The Wolf raises both eyebrows, blowing a stream of smoke out. “I think that this may be the last time we ever speak like this, the Iron Bull. Perhaps, for that, I will even give you parts of the answers you seek. Yes, I know what Ellana has done. No, I do not approve of it. Yes, it is as important as you think it is.”

“Why the last?” The Iron Bull sits across from him. The Wolf waves a hand, dispersing smoke.

“Do you not see what goes on around you? Arlathan, for the first time in literal millennium, will be moved to war. Things are changing. Times are changing. The world will change to follow suit.”

“You imply that one of us will not survive this change.”

“Either you die now, or you die later,” The Wolf shrugs, “That later, relative to _my_ later, just happens to be much sooner. Or perhaps something else will occur. But we are not here to discuss your mortality versus my chances of surviving another world shaping war. What are your grievances with the head of your house and my heir, now? I shall hear them.”

The Iron Bull tries to focus on the Wolf’s face, to try and pick out details - like remembered phrases that he can’t quite pin right.

“I know you,” He says.

“Yes,” The Wolf says, lips curving into a pleased smile, “You do.”

“I know you from before this shit storm,” The Iron Bull says, rapidly searching through his mind for the time, the place, the situation.

The Wolf nods. “Yes. But you do not remember, exactly. You have met one of my shadows - a projection of myself that I have sent to the lower realms. A non-existence that is part of me all the same, a fraction of my consciousness given form to function away from me. That is how your mind recognizes me. That is how your mind sees me. You have met _part_ of me before, briefly. But you were not my focus, then. Nor was I, yours. But still, you are correct - our lives did brush before our meeting in my chambers.”

The Iron Bull narrows his eyes.

“Your questions, the Iron Bull. I doubt that they are about the semantics of astral projection and the multiplicity of the mind.”

“Will I get _actual_ answers this time?”

“Tonight I am in no mood for games with you,” The Wolf replies, “Nor, do I think, are you in the mood for games with me. Games are only fun when they are played properly. Let us cut to the marrow of this infected thing. She frightens you and you do not trust her. Good. _Don’t_. She is not _meant_ for you, she is meant for no mortal in the way that all of us who have ascended are not meant for _anything_ temporary. She will hurt you in the end. That is what _we_ do. That is what it means to be divine.”

“Blunt,” The Iron Bull says. “That seems to run counter to what your Ascendant would have me believe, though.”

The Wolf hums, eyes closing as he exhales smoke, “Because she does not know better, yet. She is young and she is new to divinity. Her heart refuses what her mind tries to tell her. I speak, now, not as the Wolf, not as her predecessor, but as her elder, her teacher, her guardian. She is weak. She is selfish. She is cowardly. But at the core of her lies an indomitable will and vice. Ellana’s choices, her loyalties, are her own and unshakeable. It is part her nature, and part something cultivated in her by her previous _masters_.”

The Wolf spits out that word, lips curling up to show teeth.

“Ellana, for better or worse, has chosen you. She has chosen all of you. She swore herself to you, did she not?”

“She did,” The Iron Bull says, “And something tells me that people who think they’re gods shouldn’t be prostrating themselves to their servants.”

“Yes, but you _are not_ her servants,” The Wolf says, “She has taken you as _hers_. Her house, her _lethallin_ , her _equals_. In her eyes that is unchangeable, a fact. Whether you return it or not does not matter. You could disavow her, betray her, sell her, wound her. She has chosen you. She will stand between you and the rest of the world, she will stand for you against every power. Ellana’s loyalty, her love, is her greatest poison. It is her greatest flaw. She loves deeply. She loves too much. And she loves the worst things for her. I, myself, am such an example of that.”

“If that is true,” The Iron Bull says, “Then why does she turn against her _masters_ so easily? I find it hard to believe that she would _run_ if she was so loyal.”

“She did not _love_ her masters, she never _chose_ them,” The Wolf sneers, giving him a sharp look over the pipe, “You should not ask stupid questions, the Iron Bull. It does not suit a man of your calibre. You already know why she ran.”

“Mahanon,” The Iron Bull replies, a thousand questions in a single name. The Wolf nods.

“Mahanon,” He confirms. “You heard the phrase _blood pair_ at the gathering. He was the other half of her pair - they took him from her. It should have crippled her, turned her into an example. They underestimated her.” The Wolf’s lips quirk up, “I think we have all underestimated her and her ability to resurrect from the deepest of graves.”

“You have,” The Iron Bull says, “I don’t know where to set that bar aside from _high_.”

“Good, all the better for you,” The Wolf says, taking another draw from the pipe. “The answers you seek the Iron Bull, the answers behind the questions your mind asks but does not know how to put the words to - they are not answers I can give you. I can tell you not to trust her, I can tell you that your relationship with her will only end in suffering - as it must for any relationship between the temporary and the eternal - and I can tell you that I am - right now at the present, somewhere far away from you, overlooking plans and decisions that will lead armies into war on the fields and homes of those you have previously sought to protect - but I cannot tell you those things. You wish to know what Mahanon is, exactly, and I cannot explain it because it is not my place. I am not, and have never been, a Raven. I am not of that specific blood pair. I cannot explain it because I, myself, do not know it. I cannot explain it in the same way your Lieutenant could not being to explain the experiences you had in Seheron that drove you to this.”

The smoke seems to no longer be smoke as it drifts out of the Wolf’s mouth, eyes something close to relatable when the Iron Bull looks into them. He can almost put words to the way the man looks. Colors, even. Proper words and colors. Almost.

“You want to know what she is, what is happening to her - what I have done to her, you want to know what this _corruption_ is, you want to know about the multitude of voices, the plurality that now exists within her - within all of us of the Pantheon. That I cannot tell you because it is forbidden. It is knowledge that belongs to only us, those who have partaken of divinity. Even the Firsts, the Seconds, the Thirds and the endless line of potential heirs do not know it. They will not know it until they have taken the final leap. And the knowledge will either destroy them, or push them into _otherness_. It is a secret that we each take to the endless dream. It is a secret we keep from the rest of Arlathan, from the rest of the world, because if you knew, it would destroy you.” The Wolf’s eyes, abruptly soften, as does his voice. “Believe it or not, the Iron Bull, but that secret is kept for your own good.”

“All secrets are kept for someone’s own good,” The Iron Bull says, “And that someone usually suffers more for it. Don’t treat me like a child who doesn’t know what’s good for them. Isn’t that a decision the rest of us should be making for ourselves?”

“Not with this secret,” The Wolf says. “We all decided to keep it - all of us - because if you knew this you would fail. You would fall. Contrary to what you may think of us, we do not want that. We are, at worst, indifferent to what happens to the rest of you - Antiva, Orzammar, Ferelden, Orlais, Nevarra, the Free Marches, Par Vollen, Rivain. What you do is your choice, we want no part in it. But for all that - we would rather not have you disappear from the face of this planet.”

“Whatever secret you have, I doubt it would do that much damage,” The Iron Bull raises an eyebrow. “We aren’t that delicate.”

“Aren’t you?” The Wolf laughs, waves a hand, “Look at yourself. What drove you here? What pushed you into this? Away from Seheron and your Qunari war? Why do you flinch away from the name Hissrad? You are delicate. You shatter easily. Do not be ashamed of it. It’s proof that there’s some quality to you. If you like, ask Ellana your questions about Mahanon, about her choices, about why she’s chosen you, about why she does what she does. But do not ask the question of _what she is_. Just know that what she is necessary.”

“Is it necessary by your warped view, or is it something _truly_ necessary? How am I supposed to judge that without all the facts?”

“Have you ever judged anything with _all_ the facts?” The Wolf rolls the pipe between his long fingers, “No one has ever judged anything with all the facts. Not me, not you, not her. You want the facts? Before we began her change, her apotheosis, she chose you. There was a moment when she chose you over me. Over herself. Over Arlathan. She has chosen you and yours dozens of times over since you arrived. She will continue to choose you. You do not trust her, and you would be a fool to care for her more than as an ally and benefactor. Tell me, the Iron Bull, what will you do now?”

“What I have to do,” The Iron Bull says, “Whatever that means to keep my people alive and safe for as long as I can.”

The Wolf laughs, “A very good answer. Ellana’s type of answer. The two of you are very similar. Perhaps that is why she is so very fond of you. Goodbye, the Iron Bull.”


	85. Chapter 85

Ellana wakes, a disturbance in her soul.

No, not a disturbance. An opening. It’s reflex to try and force the gates of her mind closed, but this is an opening that’s been scarred into her and cannot be undone.

She sits up and slides out of bed, the floor is cold on her feet, but the dread is colder in her chest.

The halls are silent, but not empty. The night, in the domain of the Wolf, is always awake. This, Ellana thinks, is one of the few ways it is like the Raven’s nests. And it is one of the few unwelcome ones.

In most other things the Wolf has reversed everything she has known - and she has embraced it as well as she can with her crippled and malformed self. Ellana understands that now. It has taken years and years and years, but she understands that is what she is. That is what the Ravens design their slaves to be: dependent, fearful, anxious, high strung, and fragile of heart and mind.

All the easier to take them over, all the easier to cut them down, all the easier to play with.

There was never a moment of peace. Always there were eyes, everywhere.

That has not changed in the Wolf’s court. If anything it is worse here because of her higher station.

At least she knows that they eyes are neutral, if not friendly.

Ellana makes her way through the maze of hallways and verandas and eluvians, following the pull in her lungs and throat. He calls her - he calls them.

And he is upset.

How could he not be? They are forced to a war they did not plan or forsee, a war that they cannot bargain their way out of. A war that they cannot prevent.

Ellana’s feet stop at the edge of the change in shadows. The Wolf’s shadow.

“He waits for you,” Ellana turns and sees Lyna, head bowed, hood drawn over her hair.

“How bad?” Ellana asks.

“Sylaise readies her plagues and Jun’s stations glow at all hours,” Lyna replies, “The dreaming is unsettled with the movement of the Gods. Andruil’s forces are about ready to touch ground and Ghilan’nain’s monsters have been woken. Ghilan’nain’s creatures look ready to descend on the shores first in an attempt to draw Mythal’s forces.”

Ellana closes her eyes, “And the Ravens?”

“Retreated into their fortresses,” Lyna answers, “Our spies have not yet been able to report back any significant movements. I believe they are rattled by your progress through Ascension.”

The Wolf inside of her stirs, rumbles, preens, and coos. They should be rattled. Ellana will rattle their brains straight out of their skulls. They are the ones who drove her to this. They are the ones who began this.

Ellana might not have chosen the method of finishing it, but here they are. Ellana will take this jump. She will snatch at this gamble.

It’s all she has.

(Ellana has failed in every promise she has ever made. She has failed as a slave, a servant, a pair, a first. She will not fail in this one thing.

Ellana’s goals are as follows: get her household to safety and leave them there, do whatever she can to keep them alive through their natural days, earn them.

The last one is optional and purely a selfish whim on her part. She doubts she will ever earn their trust, their faith, or their acceptance. She has done too much against them and hurt them too deeply.

Realistically, all three of those goals are as fragile as skin under teeth in the face of this war that moves the heavens. But she can try.

The Wolf dreamed of making a woman and a goddess out of her. Neither of them are quite certain about what she’s becoming, and Ellana will never be a woman she will always be a Raven or a Wolf or some beast in between. But he can dream.

Ellana is not yet that cruel.)

“Thank you, Lyna,” Ellana says and steps forward. The shadows rise around her ankles - living and warm even though she knows it is ice and winter. But to her it has always been warm. Since the very beginning, this shadow has never been anything but that thing which she doesn’t know how to look at without bleeding.

(Is that not why they are forced to war? Is that not why he breaks her? Is that not why she carries this corruption in her like a seed that takes her blood and slowly replaces bone and flesh? Is that not why she finds the dreams safe again?)

Ellana enters, the shadows dragging at her ankles.

“Close the door, Lyna was dismissed?”

“Yes,” Ellana lets the heavy doors fall behind her.

Solas stands, by a mirror, working on the fastenings of his armor and robes. Ellana moves to help him. Even with both of their fingers, there are many intricate knots and ties that hold him together.

“You have done well while I was gone,” Solas says and Ellana braces herself for the inevitable that must come when his voice takes on that level of command. “Everything appears to be in order and ready for marching orders. You did well in that regard.”

“Thank you.”

“And yet the Iron Bull calls to me in dreams,” Solas continues, voice deceivingly blasé, “Questioning your legitimacy. Questioning you. You have made yourself vulnerable, weak. He goes around you to me instead. You are failing in the most basic of tasks, the most fundamental parts of leadership - nobility or godhood.”

“I know,” Ellana keeps her eyes focused on the ties underneath her fingers.

Solas’ hand is like a snake, quick to catch her chin and force her eyes to meet his.

“No, you do not,” Solas says, “They question your legitimacy at every turn. You cannot allow this sort of weakness. You are lucky it was Mythal who caught you - if it were anyone else. _And in the heart of June’s citadel_. You cannot let them know how it affects you. You cannot be seen as weak - your household is a bunch of thin blooded mortals who will die within the next half century or so left to their own devices. If you fail to bring them into line, if you fail to earn their loyalty or their trust or even their respect how do you expect to lead this entire realm?”

“They’re different,” Ellana can’t help but protest, “Mortals are different than us. Their rules, their customs - and they’ve been raised their entire lives to hate us. They know nothing and - “

“You knew nothing,” Solas snaps, squeezing her jaw, “I took you still, I taught you better. Do not ever use the excuse of ignorance. It forgives nothing.”

Ellana winces. The Wolf does not let go.

“The Mythal has not yet spoken to June and Sylaise of what she saw. But she is concerned. Are you strong enough to stand? You have a fraction of the Wolf within you and already you show signs of crumbling. I understand that it was rushed but to lose that much control? You cast doubt within this alliance before the first soldiers have even touched ground.”

Ellana does not apologize.

Solas releases her jaw and begins to take off his under armor, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms.

Ellana goes to set the armor and padding down to be put away later.

“I need to know that the corruption has not taken you,” Solas says, voice calmer, softer. “I need to know that - for the sake of these people, _our people_ , and that of the many others who are unaware of the Pantheon’s purpose - you are capable of holding onto yourself. Tell me you can.”

“I can,” Ellana says.

“Bring your household together,” Solas says, “Do what you must. But I cannot have your sword going behind your back to check with me for every single thing.”

Ellana turns back to him, offering a wet cloth from the washing stand.

He takes it and rubs it over his tired neck and shoulders, face every year and moment and wound since he first took power.

“You swore yourself in service,” He says.

“I did.”

“Da’fen,” His voice lowers, deepens, “Did you do it in truth?”

“There would be no point if I didn’t,” Ellana raises her chin. “They may not know it, but I do. And anyone who looks close enough.”

He closes his eyes. “You put our entire kingdom at risk for this. There are other ways to gain respect.”

“This is the only way I have ever known,” Ellana replies. “And there is nothing I can give that isn’t yours. _They are my duty_. And I will suffer for them gladly. As you said, hahren, they will die within the next century. Mythal’s people waited for her for longer than that. The Wolf’s territory will hold with or without me until then.”

“You are a fool,” Solas says, disapproval in the corners of his mouth and the dredges of his voice. He draws on a lighter tunic, quickly fastening his black mantle over it. “But it is too late for me to fix this. Come, we must discuss our next measures.”


	86. Chapter 86

"Can you take me to Dorian?” Dalish asks.

Skinner knows the plan. Skinner knows that Dalish must bring the singing bone to the place of power Dorian has found with Grim’s help - out of the way and unobtrusive with the slightly more lax security patrols than the rest of the other places they have sought out. She knows that she must bring Dalish there in order for them to run the test trial of their spell to get a warning to the Inquisition; failure in this will result in the Inquisition being flattened and the rest of Thedas falling with it.

Skinner knows the plan.

And so, she also knows that when Dalish asks, “ _can you take me to Dorian?”_ , Dalish is really asking - “ _Will you take me to Dorian_?”

“It is dangerous,” Skinner says, not meeting Dalish’s gaze. “These sentinels, these gods and spirits - they see what should not be seen. They hear like the wolves they mark themselves as, they catch scent faster than any predator. These are not friendly shadows, Dalish. And I am not like them or close to them; they posses magic and means far greater than I. Not to mention their experience and the fact that they are blessed by god himself.”

Dalish’s hand is hot on Skinner’s knee, “Damn the gods to hell and back, you’ve never wanted or needed their blessing.”

Skinner’s eyes flick to Dalish’s and Dalish’s face burns with something that Skinner doesn’t know the precise word for. Pride, regret, longing and something between the three of them. Skinner does not know the word for it, so she lets it go.

“You’ve never needed any god,” Dalish squeezes her knee, spitting out the words like bones, “Since when have you ever wanted one? Why start now? Can you take me to Dorian?”

Skinner knows the plan.

Skinner knows Dalish. And so, Dalish knows Skinner.

So when Dalish asks, _“can you take me to Dorian?”_ the second time, Skinner knows what she means, what she is truly asking.

Dalish is saying this: I believe in you over them. I trust you over them.

And the only answer to the obvious question that must follow could only be -

“I can,” Skinner says and gets up to change.

(Whether Skinner succeeds or not is unclear. No one knows the future: no beast, man, woman, child, or god could ever know.

By sunrise they will know if Skinner is a liar or not.)

Skinner reaches into the very bottom of her trunk, fingers pushing past newer leather and metal to brush against the old, worn, and familiar cloth.

As fine and as wonderfully enchanted Skinner knows the clothes and armor provided to her are, they will never match the familiarity and intimacy of the clothes she wore through war to come here. They are, undoubtedly, the clothes she will be wearing through war to leave this place.

(Whether she is alive or not when that happens is yet another thing left to a different sunrise.)

Something in her skin and shoulders and bones and joints and _soul_ shivers and relaxes as she pulls her older clothing on. Everything in her shifts balance to something more natural, something much more familiar, something that makes her senses feel sharper and her eyes clearer and her teeth pearlescent.

Skinner pulls her worn cowl up and turns to Dalish, nodding.

“We go.”

The thing about knives is that they demand that you move in different ways.

When the knife is drawn, they demand precision. They demand accuracy. They command efficiency and pragmatism. The knife speaks of awareness, and punishes those who remain oblivious an ignorant. At the same time, the knife asks to be forgotten. Knives are contradictory like that. They want to be treated as your own flesh: wield them as if you were wielding your own heart on the line.

Often times, you are.

Some would think grace, elegance, and a touch of theatrical drama would be involved. For play and practice, perhaps. But not when it means something. Only the dead would consider those things vital elements.

But when the knife is sheathed - when the knife is not in obvious use - it whispers a different sort of request.

When the knife is sheathed, the knife demands to be treated a special way. Not forgotten; that would be careless and foolish. Not remembered; that would render the knife ineffective and a burden at best.

No.

A knife in its sheathe asks this of you: _indifference_.

When your knife is sheathed, so must you be. Your intent, your opinions, your goals, all of it must be hidden and stowed away. Knives are weapons of stealth and surprise. There is no surprise if the enemy knows the secret. A knife in its sheathe must be treated with nonchalance, a certain - no, not carelessness, that begs betrayal - sort of levity. A sheathed knife asks you to blend in, to not be seen, to not be caught, to pass like wind - to become nothing but air. It asks that you become empty.

And that is what Skinner becomes as she guides Dalish through the dark. She is a knife, she is less than a knife, she is air.

She is a breath that hasn’t been taken.

Yet.

“ _Arrogant! Proud! Insubordinate!_ ” A voice bellows out into the courtyard. Skinner stops, hand reaching out behind her and touching Dalish’s fingers with her own. They press into the shadows. Skinner’s eyes scan the courtyard below them and she sees a light shining through one of the heavy doors.

“ _You dare to speak to me of morals? What do you know of morals? This is war! There are no morals in war! Morals are for the victor to decide_. _Just how do you think things became this way? Look to your history!_ ”

“ _What is the point of winning a war if we lose all that we stand for?_ ” The First’s voice causes Skinner to glance back at Dalish. Dalish’s eyes glimmer, wide and just as surprised as Skinner’s.

It would seem that they are not the only ones who wish to be unseen tonight.

Skinner guesses that it would be rather unseemly if the Wolf and his heir were to be caught at each other’s throats in the middle of war.

“ _Do not preach to me of morals, you insolent whelp. Morals are a luxury I fought for you to have. Never forget that.”_

Dalish’s hand is warm on the back of Skinner’s shoulder. Her fingertips firmly press and Skinner nods.

As opportune as it would be to eavesdrop on the wolves while they are distracted, that is not what they are out for.

And with both wolves too busy with each other, what better time to sneak away?

Skinner moves on.

Air and shadow.


End file.
